


Painting Flowers

by Azure (Fancy_Ravenclaw)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-04-21 05:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14277507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fancy_Ravenclaw/pseuds/Azure
Summary: Dan has come to accept that his psychotic episodes and hallucinations are here to stay, when he meets Phil Lester. Although Phil can't fix Dan, he does give him something to fight for. Something to try for, one last time.





	1. Outlines

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago but I wasn't sure if it was safe for posting. Viewer discretion is advised; this contains self harm, suicide mentions and vivid hallucinations.

Dan had considered homeschooling quite a lot over the past few years. Every time he walked from the hotel where he lived to the high school three blocks away the option crossed his mind. He’d ponder until Oasis would speak up, and tell him that if he really couldn’t take it anymore it would always be an option. They always left it at that.  
Then on the way home, Dan would tell himself that hey, he made it through another day! All he had to do was get up the next day and do the same thing again. He tried to keep those same thoughts in mind as he ignored the kids who called him names and looked at him funny.  
He was a bit strange, after all, he knew that. The Captain told him that a lot and he could see the strange on himself every time he looked in the mirror.

He pushed the doors into the great hall open and walked toward his locker. He hated this hall. It made him feel small and vulnerable to have to cross it every day, as if everyone around him was staring at him and judging him from afar, even though he knew they weren’t.

His locker combination was his mother’s birth year. He smiled when he thought about her for a few seconds as he unlocked the door. It swung open and allowed him a look at the perfectly ordered rows of books inside. They were all stacked on top of each other, three rows in total of each nine books. He carefully pulled one of the books on the upper row out and shoved it in his bag, before replacing it with another one coming from his backpack.

“Physics first period?” Oasis asked him. She was standing beside his locker, her cheerful face was looking up at him, all bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

He nodded at her.

“Did you do the homework?” The cat was sitting on the other side of him. He licked his paw and gave Dan a triumphant look.

They were his majors, as his parents liked to call them. The other hallucinations came and went, but Oasis and The Captain hadn’t left his side in years.

“Yes, I did.” Dan replied. He slammed his locker shut and swung the bag back over his shoulder. His classroom was on the second floor, which meant they had to take the stairs. The Captain didn’t like stairs - he had difficulty getting up the steps - and Dan often hoped that maybe, just maybe, The Captain would be left downstairs some time. So that he would leave Dan alone, even if it was just for one hour. But the cat never did. He always managed to get up the stairs one way or another and would then proceed to give Dan a mean look, as if it was his fault that this classroom just happened to be on the second floor.  
Back at the hotel they had a lift. Dan’s bedroom was on the fourth floor, so he always had to take it to get up there. He himself didn’t like lifts, they made him feel confined, with no way out; he wouldn’t be strong enough to break open the door in case of emergency, he’d be trapped. Oasis, however, loved the lift, as she liked to play around with the mirrors on its walls as they went up. It was two against one, so the lift it was. Dan didn’t have much of a choice.

When he walked into his classroom he found one other boy, sitting in the back of the room with his feet on his desk and earphones in. His head moved to the beat of the song he was listening to. As he was sat on the complete left, beside the window, Dan sat down on the complete right. He always sat in the back. If he didn’t sit in the back other could look at him and just the thought of that made him uncomfortable.

The Captain hopped onto his desk and sat down, licking his paw defiantly.  
Dan was very much aware of the fact that no one else could see the cat and the little girl who were with him, so he didn’t want to speak up in the silent classroom to tell The Captain to get off his desk. He got his book from his bag and softly nudged the animal with it, who gave him an indignant look and stayed where he was. Fortunately, Oasis spoke up before Dan had to, “Come on, Cap, don’t be so mean. Just get off his desk already, he needs his books there, not a cat.”

“You could, you know,” The Captain said, looking at Dan rather than Oasis, “just put your books right here. On your desk. You know I’m not real.”

“That’s enough.” Oasis grabbed the cat and pulled him off the desk. “Bad cat.”

The Captain hissed, but didn’t object. Dan quickly put his books down, before the two of them could cause him any more trouble. When he looked up he saw that the boy on the other side of the room was looking at him. Dan couldn’t quite remember his name, but he knew that he wasn’t much of a troublemaker, in fact, he always kept quiet. He didn’t cause any trouble so the teacher hardly ever called him on.

Mrs. Covington walked in just as Dan pulled his favourite pencil out of his bag to start drawing. He absolutely loved to draw; it was calming and he even got a pretty drawing afterwards. His mum loved his drawings and kept the ones she loved most in a special album, which she’d bought just for this purpose. Dan’s own favourite wasn’t in the book. It was one of his rare coloured drawings, which he’d drawn when he’d been having one of those days. It was quick and messy, but Dan liked it a lot. That drawing had been what he’d shown his therapist to allow her a look into his mind on a bad day. It had lots of colours and characters that were all trying to get your attention and that was exactly what would be going on in Dan’s mind. It was a bit worse in his head though, as then they’d all be talking to him. Tell him to hurt himself or to hurt others. Sometimes he gave in to the first demand, never to the second. The red lines on his wrists functioned as a promise from them, that he could try whatever he wanted, but they would always win.  
Dan didn’t need them to remind him of that; he knew.

His therapist and doctors had told him he could get better medication so many times, and Dan had said no each time. He was afraid they wouldn’t work, he was afraid that The Captain would actually kill him if the were to even consider getting rid of him, Oasis and all the others.

Mrs. Covington didn’t even look at the two boys in the room when she sat down at her desk and turned on her computer. She didn’t look up until she’d gotten her books out of her bag, gotten them all to the right page, and tapped a rhythm on her desk. She gave them both a look and then turned back to the screen beside her. 

The day passed slowly, every hour felt like two and every class seemed to drag on longer than the last one. When he finally pulled the last of his books out of his locker and put them in his backpack he was exhausted. School wore him out, but that was nothing new. It wasn’t the classes that tired him so much, it was the stares, the constantly having to keeping up the façade of quietness, this wall that he’d build around himself that he had to support every day to make sure it didn’t crumble. 

As soon as he stepped outside he felt the air getting easier to breathe and his footsteps getting lighter. He was free again, another day successfully survived. 

He often visited the nearby bookstore after school, not necessarily to buy books even, he just wanted to be around them for a while and maybe read some of the blurbs. It wasn’t far from his school and he turned the corner five minutes after leaving school. The glass doorknob felt cold under his hand when he pushed it open and walked in. Oasis loved the bookstore, The Captain usually didn’t hang around him, he’d lie down and go to sleep somewhere. Not that Dan minded - on the contrary, one of the reasons he liked the bookstore so much was because The Captain would leave him alone there. Oasis would usually wander off as well, not coming back until Dan left the store again.  
“Hi Daniel.” Andrea, the store’s owner gave him her friendly smile. Dan and she had become friends over the years, since Dan came here at least three times a week.  
After saying hello to her and having a quick chat Dan walked straight to his usual bookcase. It was in the back of the store; the extraterrestrial section. 

“That reminds me of something,” Andrea said as she walked out from her counter to where Dan was standing, “There was this boy here yesterday, about your age I think. Maybe a bit older. Anyway, he was looking at those same books and he asked me if we stocked The Sirius Mystery, which struck me as odd, because well you know, not many people your age are interested in that kind of stuff.”

Dan had only vaguely been listening to what she was saying, until she had mentioned his favourite book. He’d read it when he was only eleven years old and it had been his favourite ever since; he’d reread it dozens of times. “Did you ask his name?”

“I did, I thought you might know him. His name was Phil.”

Dan shook his head, “I don’t think I know him.” Then again, Dan didn’t know that many people by name, simply because he didn’t really care about their names. Sometimes The Captain remembered people’s names though and he’d tell Dan when Dan had forgotten. He turned to The Captain, who was lying on a stack of books near the door. When he noticed Dan looking at him he grinned, “Don’t look at me. I don’t know anyone called Phil.”

Dan didn’t bother asking Oasis, she didn’t care for anything going on at his school at all. Sometimes she’d just disappear when he was at school and she wouldn’t come back until he walked out of the building. Maybe she hated that place even more than he did.

“Did you have it?”

“Did I have what?”

“The book. The Sirius Mystery. Did you give it to him?”

“No, no. He ordered it from our supplier, he’ll come to pick it up on Thursday.”

“Do you know what time?”

She laughed sweetly, “Do you want to meet him, love? Well, sometime after school I suppose.” She started walking back over to the counter, “I’m pretty sure he’s still in school. He didn’t seem old enough not to be. Maybe he just looked young, I’m very bad at guessing ages, I must admit.”

Dan nodded, “Thanks. Is it okay if I come back here then?”

“Of course, this is a public store after all.”

“Right.” Dan smiled, “I’ll be back on Thursday then, maybe before that. But definitely on Thursday.”

“You know you’re welcome here any day.”

“I know, thank you.” As Dan opened the glass door the cat and the little girl got out from where they’d been and walked after him.

He’d been lucky the store was out of copies of The Sirius Mystery, Dan realised as he entered the hotel through the backdoor. He walked through the Staff Only halls till he got to the lobby, where some people were sitting around on the fancy sofas, drinking tea and chatting. There was a girl on his left sitting at one of the computers in the Internet Area. He recognised the blue of Twitter over her shoulder when he passed her. 

“Lift.” The Captain said, even though Dan always took the lift and there was no need to say it.

“I know what to do.” Dan mumbled back. He got into the lift and pressed the right button. He had some maths homework that he had to finish for the next day, but for the rest he didn’t have anything to do. He considered starting The Sirius Mystery again, but decided against it. He stepped out of the lift and walked towards his room, reciting the nine planets of the milky way to himself.

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

Another thing that always calmed him down.

In the rare case that reciting planets didn’t help, he’d start reciting the temperatures on every planet to himself, or the amount of earth days it took for the planet to orbit the sun.

Whereas his locker was completely ordered and perfect to every last inch, his room was a complete mess. There were books and drawings scattered all over the floor. One of the corners of the giant map of the galaxy on his wall was hanging down as the tack had fallen out and said tack had been carelessly put on a stack of books on top of the completely packed bookcase. When walking in he didn’t bother making sure to not step on anything; the drawings on the floor weren’t very valuable to him. The books were all stacked so that even without looking for them specifically he wouldn’t miss them and accidentally knock them over. He kicked his shoes off and sat down at his desk.

“You going to do homework, Dan? Can’t you come play?”

“Just this assignment, Oasis. After that we can play.” Dan looked back over his shoulder. Another little girl had appeared next to Oasis, a pretty girl with dark skin and black eyes whose sparkling eyes were looking at him. “See, you’ve got a friend there.”

“Can Zuri play with us later too?” Oasis asked.

“Of course she can.” Dan got his books from his bag and tried to focus on his maths homework. The Captain was trying to distract him. He had hopped onto the desk next to Dan’s books and was talking to him. It was nothing out of the ordinary, The Captain just happened to talk a lot, and Dan had gotten used to it and learnt to do homework and occasionally listen to The Captain at the same time. The cat didn’t really seem to care if Dan was listening or not, he just wanted to ramble to someone and if Dan was willing to at least pretend he was listening then that was good enough.

Just as Dan was putting on his trainers to go out on his semi-daily late night walk, he heard a knock on the door. “Come in.”

The door opened and his mum’s head appeared. She smiled at him, “Hey sweetheart, we’ve got an important guest coming tomorrow so we can’t have dinner together. I’ll put some money on your desk so that you can order pizza, alright?”

“Sure mum, good luck with the guest.”

She pointed at his shoes, “Don’t come back too late. School tomorrow.”

“I know.” Dan replied. After his mum left Dan waited a few minutes to make sure she’d left the hall, before going outside and taking the lift down. 

He lived just on the edge of the centre of London. There was quite a bit of traffic on their street, but whereas the actual centre had lots of flats, the neighbourhood where they lived had lots of houses too. Their hotel was on a perfect street, close to the shops, yet not too crowded. This also meant that Dan only had to walk for a few minutes to get to the centre of London. He liked walking through the dark, yet still busy streets. A city that never slept. It usually sounded amazing, but sometimes he’d wish that everyone would just go to bed for once, so that he could walk in silence without all the flashing signs and talking people everywhere around him. 

He took walks as often as he could. Just to clear his mind and be quiet for a while. Let the city provide the sounds so that the voices in his head didn’t have to. Oasis and The Captain where following right behind him. Oasis had a new friend with her this time, Dan vaguely recognised her from a previous encounter but he couldn’t recall her name. Dan didn’t mind speaking to his hallucinations on his late-night walks; the people around him were to busy chatting themselves and would either not notice or assume he was speaking to one of the many other people walking in the same direction.

“Why don’t you ever take a friend?” Dan asked The Captain.

The cat laughed, “Why would I? I’ve got you.”

“Yeah, but I mean like another cat.”

“Do you want me to bring another cat? I’ll bring one on our next walk if you really want me to.”

“It’s not that I really want you to, it’s just that I think it might be more fun for you. I’m usually just daydreaming when walking.”

“It gives me time to think too.” The Captain replied.

“Oasis brings friends.”

“She’s a little girl, she’s different.”

Dan shrugged, “You’re not really a cat though.”

“I’m a hallucination of a talking cat, blah, blah, blah. I know, Daniel, I know.”

Dan didn’t attempt to say more.


	2. Dark Side of Your Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan gets pushed around and takes it out on himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING this chapter contains self harm.

When Dan woke up the next morning he found The Captain sitting on his nightstand. The cat’s black eyes followed his movements when he got out of bed and walked into his bathroom. Dan could tell he was in a bad mood, which meant Dan was going to get hell later on. As he brushed his teeth he could sense the animal walk into the bathroom behind him. “Where’s Oasis?” Dan asked.

“Who knows?” The Captain replied. 

“Is she not here? Is she not coming to school?”

“I said,” The cat hopped onto the sink, “Who. Knows.”

“Did you do something to her?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I’m a cat. I shouldn’t even be able to talk, let alone murder some crazy kid’s hallucinations.”

“If you could, you would. And you know it.”

“Okay, yes. I definitely would. But you’re out of your mind and I don’t abide by your rules. Don’t want to catch the crazy.” He gave Dan a mean grin before jumping back to the floor and leaving the room.

Dan sighed and rubbed his eyes. This was going to be a long day.

 

Oasis didn’t show up at school, but some kid who ‘accidentally’ knocked all of Dan’s books off his desk did. He laughed as he walked away and left Dan to quickly pick his books back up and count to ten as he put them all back on the table; throwing a fit in the middle of the cafeteria didn’t seem like that great an idea. 

“If they come to close near you they’ll catch the crazy.”

“Shut up.” Dan mumbled under his breath. He crammed his books in his bag and swung it over his shoulder.

“No, really,” The cat continued as he scuttled next to Dan, who was quickly making his way out of the cafeteria, “This is how they used to treat people with strange illnesses. They’d look at them weird and call them names. That’s what they’re doing to you, Dan. Because you have a strange illness too and they can’t even cure you.”

Dan didn’t reply until he’d made it to his locker, in an empty hall. “I could get stronger meds. They’d make you go away.”

“But you wouldn’t do that, would you? I’d make sure you wouldn’t. I can’t live without you, literally.” He laughed at his own joke.

“You’re not alive anyway. You’re not real.”

“Aren’t I? Aren’t your gross arms enough proof of my existence though? I’m in your head, Dan, and that’s enough. That’s all it takes. You’re too weak to battle even your own mind.”

“This is all your fault. You’re the reason my arms look disgusting in the first place.”

“I’m a hallucination. You’re just doing this to yourself.” 

Dan forcefully opened his locker, grabbed some books and slammed the locker shut. “We’re going home.” He announced.

“You’ve got five more classes.”

“I don’t care.” He put his books in his backpack and started walking towards the exit. 

“You can’t just leave.”

“Watch me.” He pushed open the doors and started walking even faster as soon as he tasted the fresh air. It didn’t make breathing easier today, in fact, it made it harder. He knew every hurried step brought him closer to his bedroom, closer to blades, razors and blood. 

He was almost looking forward to it, in some twisted way.

“Are you going to go home and hurt yourself, Dan? Is that what you’re going to do? Is that the only thing you’ve got? You can’t even properly deal with your stupid issues.”  
“That’s because my fucking issues are in my head. You’re the issue.”

“Me? Just me? Not the kid who purposely knocked over your books? Not the kids who stare at you or call you names? What about those kids who push you or hit you? Is it not their fault either? Is it all me? I’m almost proud.”

“Leave me alone. Just go away.” Dan was shouting at this point. He could still feel the bruise on his stomach from where some guy had punched him last week, as a dare from one of his friends.

That was what he had become. A dare. Something to mess around with.

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

It was dehumanizing and each time something like this happened it brought Dan closer to believing it. It brought him closer to the notion that maybe he wasn’t a whole human being. Maybe he was missing an essential part that would make him normal, that would have made him not see Oasis, or The Captain. 

His parents were nowhere to be seen when he walked into the building through the Staff Only entrance at the back and took the lift upstairs. He was getting closer now, could almost feel the cool metal on the inside of his arms. He was craving it now. 

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

Every now and again he just needed to bleed out all the negative thoughts just to start a new bucket of negativity in his brain. The current one was full; he needed to get the negativity out.

When he put his hand on the doorknob to his room he turned around to face The Captain, “Leave.” He said.

“Why would I? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Dan quickly slipped into his room and closed the door behind him immediately to try and lock the cat out, but as soon as he turned away from the door he could see it sitting on the bed, licking its paw with an expectant face. “Are you going to do it or what? Do you need another kid to beat you up first?”

Dan tried to lock The Captain out again by going into the bathroom, but of course he couldn’t get rid of him that easily. “If only the girl was here.” He teased. “Maybe she’d talk you out of it.”

He knew she wouldn’t. Oasis didn’t like when he cut, so she’d leave the room as soon as she gave up on trying to convince him not to.

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

He sat down on the cold tiles next to the bathroom cabinet under the sink and opened the small doors. His blades and razors were in a small cardboard box on the first shelf.   
He carefully selected one and put it on the floor while he looked through the box, hoping to find an even better one. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he put the box back on the shelf. He was calm now that the pain he would inflict upon himself was getting closer. He pulled his jumper over his head and folded it neatly before reaching up and placing it on the counter. The blade felt cold on his fingers. He squeezed it in between his hands for a few seconds in an attempt to warm it up a bit, but gave up as the urge to just press it into his skin already was taking control of his brain. 

It felt good. It hurt, but that was the good part. His definition of a good feeling had been seriously twisted over the years to the point where he found pleasure in the pain. He liked watching the blood trickle down his arm and hit the towel. He liked looking at the dark spots on the towels, knowing they were his blood. 

On his good days he knew it was absolutely crazy. On those days he regretted every single one of those cuts. But on days like these, the bad days, he craved them. As many as he possibly could, no number of gashes in his arm could be enough to finally satisfy his need for pain and blood.

When he ran out of space on his right arm he switched to his left. His left was evidently cleaner than his right. He preferred holding the blade with his left hand, as he was left-handed and had more control over where and how deep he cut with that hand. He only cut his left arm if his entire left arm was full and he had nowhere else to go. He could of course move to his thighs, but he was too into it to even consider taking of his trousers. 

The Captain was observing him with a smug look on his face. 

“Are you enjoying this?” Dan asked, giving the cat a disturbed look, “Do you like watching me do this?” 

The tears were rolling down his cheeks at this point. He wasn’t trying to hold them back anymore, there was no one who could see him anyway. It was just him and The Captain and it was not like The Captain was going to tell others what a wimp he was later. As if he needed someone to remind him. As if he didn’t remind himself of it every second of every day.

Just as he was about to put the blade to his arm again, Oasis showed up in front of him. She looked shocked when she realised what he was doing.  
Dan hesitated for a second, “Go away, Oasis. You don’t need to see this.”

“Disappointment.” The girl stated before she disappeared again.

Dan pressed the word into his skin.

He didn’t put the blade down until the light-headedness had become so bad that he had to rest his head against the wall to catch his breath and close his eyes. His hands were both lying in his lap. He could still feel the blood run down his skin.

“You done already? That’s all you’ve got?” The Captain jumped off the counter and landed next to Dan’s leg.

“My head feels weird.” Dan murmured in reply.

“That means you’ve got to keep going.”

“I don’t think it does. I might faint.”

“Yeah, please do. That’ll be fun. Come on, faint, Dan.”

Dan sat there for a few minutes, willing himself to faint and hopefully wake up feeling better, but his body wasn’t planning on letting him off that easily. After a while he felt the light-headedness gradually fade and he titled his head forward to look at his arms. Most of the blood had dried and was now stuck to his skin, but one of the cuts on his left arm was still bleeding a little bit. He carefully dabbed at it with the towel until it stopped.

When he finally found the strength to pull himself up by the counter he stood leaning over the sink for a few more minutes, making sure he really wasn’t going to faint, and then left the bathroom. He didn’t want to clean his arms yet, he wanted to look at what he’d done later. Oasis was sitting on his bed, she looked at him with an accusing look on her face.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because that’s all I’m worth.” Dan replied. He was tired, but his mind wasn’t done cussing at him yet. He was a lot calmer now though and he thought about taking a nap.  
“Did The Captain tell you to do it?”

“He always does, Oasis. You know that. But it’s not just him, it’s everyone and everything. They push me around and they stare at me. Some of them yell at me and call me names, they damage my books and other stuff and you know what, Oasis? Sometimes I need to let it all out. So stop bothering me about it.”

She looked hurt but Dan couldn’t bring himself to care. After all she had just called him a disappointment. It wasn’t like that word had been a lie, in fact, it was completely how Dan thought of himself, but that didn’t take away from the fact that it hurt coming from Oasis.

Oasis and The Captain were like opposites; The Captain was usually mean and condescending while Oasis was usually sweet – she was controlling, but she was still nice to him -, and The Captain had his nice moments whereas Oasis had her mean moments. Dan was used to The Captain’s hurtful comments, they did still get to him, but he was used to them. When Oasis was mean to him her words really hurt him. Just because he didn’t expect it from her. He felt like he couldn’t trust either of them, and although it might sound weird, he felt like out of the two The Captain was the most trustworthy. At least he didn’t pretend to like Dan, he didn’t play around and try to gain Dan’s trust. Dan kind of trusted Oasis, which made her comments worse. 

It made him want to write them into his own skin with blood.


	3. A Daydream Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan meets Phil at a bookstore.

Dan woke up on the floor. He was lying on his stomach with his arms spread out on either side of his body. He didn’t remember much from the night before. All he knew was that he definitely didn’t use the money his mum has left on his desk for pizza, and he didn’t go on a late-night walk. He hadn’t put on his jumper and the blood was still on his arms, indicating that he didn’t take a shower, nor did he even clean his arms. It surprised him how little he cared about it when he pulled himself up from the floor. The movement made that one of the cuts on his arm opened again and a small trickle of blood flowed out. He put his mouth on his arm to lick it off, and when he raised his head it had stopped bleeding.

He didn’t feel like getting washed up yet, but he did walk over to the bathroom to pick up his jumper and pull it over his head. He carefully made sure the sleeves covered up all of the new cuts on his arms and checked his hair in the mirror before he left the room. The alarm clock on his nightstand told him it was already eleven; he’d slept through his first three classes.

He decided to take a leap of faith as he quickly sprayed on some deodorant before grabbing his mum’s money from his desk and going onto the hallway. He walked into some guest who was staying on his hall and looked at him funny, probably wondering how a teenager looking so messy could afford to stay at a place like this. He pulled his sleeves down to the middle of his palm and held them there by pressing his fingers into the fabric as they waited for the lift together.

“What brings you here?” She finally asked.

“A bed, a toilet and the occasional meal.” Dan replied sarcastically. He usually didn’t tell the guests that he was the owners’ kid: he didn’t want to scare them off. 

The lady gave him an indignant look but didn’t speak up again. 

Fortunately, Dan didn’t run into either one of his parents or any of the staff members who were friends with his family. He quickly crossed the lobby and walked out of the hotel.   
He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked, keeping his head down in case someone he knew walked past. School would end in three hours, which meant he wouldn’t be able to meet the bookstore boy until then and he was going to have to entertain himself till he could. The world around him looked a lot calmer than it had the day before, a lot less hostile, even though he knew it was all in his head. 

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice Oasis walking behind him until she started talking. “Are you feeling better today? You were in a bad place yesterday.”  
“I was.” Dan replied. “It’s all good now. My arms still hurt, but as long as I don’t look at them I won’t regret it too much.”

 

The Breakfast Bar wasn’t crowded anymore at this hour, especially not on a Thursday. Dan only had to wait for a few minutes to place his order. He sat down near the window and looked at the people in the street. He sometimes sat here before school, and around that time everyone outside seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. School, work, maybe somewhere else. They were all speed walking to their destinations and didn’t even look at their surroundings. But at 11:20 in the morning the people with a nine to five job were now at their offices, and the people passing the window were people who seemed to have all the time in the world. They walked slowly and took the time to chat to each other. Dan had once sat there for multiple hours and counted the smiles he saw. The eleven am people were much happier than the seven am people had been. 

He ate his omelette in silence, still observing the people outside, and continued to do so until he’d finished his food and his drink and had sat there for about half an hour afterwards as well. Two more hours to fill until he could go to the bookstore and wait for Phil. They passed slowly and seemed to try and hold on to the present for as long as possible while Dan walked around the busy streets of London. He walked around some of the big shopping centres, looked at the expensive products, and left without buying anything. 

 

He still arrived at the bookstore ten minutes before school would finish, but he felt like he could go in now. Oasis was excited to meet Phil; she’d been talking about it the entire walk from Shake Away to the glass door of the bookstore, where Dan told her to stop, because she was making him nervous. The Captain was still nowhere to be seen and Dan hoped he wouldn’t show up. Maybe he just wouldn’t come back. Dan could always hope.

Andrea looked up from the magazine she was reading when she heard the door open. She immediately broke into a smile upon recognising Dan, “Hey, love. You here to see Phil?”

“Yeah,” Dan replied, blushing, “Don’t tell him though, alright? I don’t think I have the guts to talk to him. I just want to see him.”

“Of course, of course. I won’t say anything, don’t worry about me.” She bent over to grab something from underneath her counter, and popped back up with a brown parcel in her hands.

Dan recognised the brown paper it was wrapped in, that had to be Phil’s copy of The Sirius Mystery. Dan had ordered books here enough times to be able to recognise the wrapping.

At five past two, when Dan was standing with his back to the door and a magazine in his hands, Andrea left the room trough the backdoor behind the counter. Just as Dan was about to ask her where she was going, he heard the glass door open. The boy who walked in seemed about Dan’s age, probably a few years older. He was a bit taller than Dan and had the same hairstyle as him, but in black, whereas Dan’s hair was dark brown. The boy’s blue eyes met Dan’s for a second before turning to the counter. When he didn’t find anyone there, he turned back to Dan, “Hi.”

Dan looked up from his magazine again, “Hi.” He replied.

“Is Andrea not here?”

Dan blinked a few times but then nodded and vaguely gestured to the door behind the counter, “She’s over there. She just left. You’re here for The Sirius Mystery?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“It’s my favourite book. Andrea told me someone had ordered it and was coming to pick it up today. I just assumed it was you.”

“I’m Phil.” The boy smiled at him and stepped closer, offering Dan his hand.

Dan shook it. “Dan.” He replied. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Oasis sitting on a stack of books, looking at him, but she didn’t draw his attention as much as she usually did.

“You interested in aliens, then?” Phil asked.

“Yeah.” Dan said. “Always have been, really. The Sirius Mystery may not be the best alien book out there, but it’s definitely my favourite.”

“I haven’t read that many books of that genre, so I don’t think I’m allowed to pick a favourite.” He looked Dan up and down for a second before adding, “You know, if you give me your phone number I could give you a call once I finish reading it. Maybe then I’ll be able to form a proper judgement on extraterrestrial books.”

Dan was stunned for a second. No one had ever flirted with him. No one.

Then again, that was probably because everyone he knew thought he was absolutely out of his mind.

“Yeah.” Was all he could say.

“Is that a ‘yeah’ as in ‘yeah I’ll give you my phone number’, or a ‘yeah’ as in ‘yeah that would be nice wouldn’t it, but it’s definitely not happening’?”

“I’ll- you can- I’ll give you my phone number.”

“Brilliant.”

Just as Dan was reciting his phone number for Phil to put in his phone, the backdoor opened and Andrea walked back into the store. She looked satisfied when she realised what was happening and Dan shot her a look.

“Sorry you had to wait. Phil, wasn’t it? You’re here for The Sirius Mystery?” 

Phil turned around and put his phone back in his pocket, “Yes, I am.” He walked over to the register and paid for his book. “You busy?” He asked Dan as he turned back around with the book in his hand.

“Nope.” Dan replied.

“Good.” Phil walked over to one of the bookcases and pulled a book off the shelf. “Read this?”

Dan stepped closer and examined the cover. “Is that fiction?”

“Yes.”

“I hardly read any fiction books.”

“This one is really good, I promise you.”

“Can I read the back?” Dan asked. He reached out for the book and Phil handed it to him.

“It sounds nice indeed.” He offered when he finished reading.

“Want to read it?”

“Would love to. Don’t have the money on me right now, so I’ll come back later I think.”

“I have money though.” Before Dan could protest Phil had walked back to the register and put the book down on the counter. “It’s a gift.” He told Andrea. 

She smiled at him, “Oh really?”

Dan knew his face was bright red and he managed to stutter a small “Thank you” when Phil handed him the book. 

“Now,” The latter said, “You said you weren’t busy?”

“Correct.” Dan replied.

“Want to go get drinks with me?”

Dan raised his eyebrows in surprise, “Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’d love to.”

Andrea winked at him when the two boys walked out the store.

 

“Where do you want to go?” Phil asked.

“There’s this really nice café just around the corner, if you’re okay with that?”

“Sounds good. I only moved here recently so I don’t really know where anything is yet.” He flashed Dan a smile.

 

Dan ordered his usual coffee while Phil studied the menu for a bit. “They’ve got some great coffee here.” Phil uttered.

“That’s why this is my favourite place.” Dan replied.

“I’ll take a caramel macchiato, please.” 

“Coming right up.” The girl behind the counter nodded at the both of them and turned around to get them their coffees.

“Did you get a mocha latte?” Phil questioned.

Dan nodded.

“That’s my mum’s favourite.” Phil smiled.

“Is that a good thing?”

“I wasn’t just comparing you to my mum, I just mentioned it. I’m sorry, it probably sounded weird, didn’t it?” Phil said. They both laughed.

With the drinks in their hands they went to sit down near a window. Phil was half leaning over the table on his elbows and he looked amused, as if Dan was just telling him a very interesting story.

“Tell me about yourself.” He said.

Dan paused for a few seconds before replying, “I’m Dan, I’m 18. I’m in sixth form. I live like a few blocks away from the centre of London, because my parents own a hotel and my bedroom is basically just one of the hotel rooms. That’s all I think.”

“Do you have any siblings?” Phil asked.

“Nope. Just me and my parents.”

“Pets?”

Dan considered telling him about The Captain for a just a split second before quickly abandoning the thought and shaking his head, “No pets.” He confirmed.

“Hobbies?”

“I like drawing, going for walks, reading, other things that aren’t at all interesting.”

“What do you mean not interesting? This is very interesting information.”

“Alright, so tell me about you. I bet you’re way more interesting than I am.”

“Phil, 21, in university. I live in my parents’ basement in East London with my cat Bellamy and my goldfish without a name. I enjoy books, hiking and playing videogames. I live for American Horror Story.”

“See, I told you you were more interesting. I wouldn’t even go near American Horror Story, just the promotion pictures scare the crap out of me.”

Phil laughed, “Aw, it’s not that scary, honestly. The first few episodes are scary and then you get used to it. Except for the jump scares. You never get used to the jump scares.”  
“I like documentaries. Like Natural Geographic and Discovery Channel, I love those.”

“The animal documentaries?”

“Sure, if they’re on I’ll watch those. I like the ones about American presidents a lot and I also like many of the shows on those channels, like the ones where the presenters work in mines and the ones where they set up auctions for super expensive stuff which then gets bought by rich antique salespeople.”

“Yeah, I know those shows. Out of all channels on TV those two are my favourites too, I think.”

They sat and chatted, almost forgetting about their coffee until Dan attempted to take a sip of his and found it to be only just lukewarm, after which they both quickly finished their coffees. They didn’t leave after that though, they sat there for about an hour afterwards, just talking about everything and nothing. 

Dan had never been on a date and he wasn’t sure if this could be called one, but it definitely did feel like it. And it felt great. He felt appreciated and heard. Whenever he spoke Phil looked at him with this almost intense stare, making it very clear that he was listening to every word Dan said. Phil was witty and funny, made just the right comments at the right moment, and frankly, Dan was a bit jealous of his social skills. But for some reason it mattered a lot less now that this boy was using his social skills on him and didn’t seem to mind that Dan’s social skills were of a level much lower. He was patient, gave Dan time to try and struggle through some sentences to get to the point. 

When they finally left the café Phil even walked him home. He looked the hotel up and down, committing it to memory. “I think I’ve seen this before.” He noted.

“It’s quite well known.” Dan replied.

Phil laughed, “I guess it is.” He turned to Dan. “Can I call you?”

“Yes. Of course. This date or whatever it was was definitely a success.”

“If you want to call it a date then I would be glad to join you in doing so.” 

“Fantastic, then it was a date.”

“I’ll call you, Dan. Say hi to your parents for me.”

“I will.” Dan laughed. He pushed the door into the lobby open and looked over his shoulder to Phil one last time, who was still standing on the pavement. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

 

He walked into the lobby with a light feeling in his stomach and everything around him seemed happy and bright. 

“Someone skipped school.” The Captain was walking next to him again, Dan hadn’t even noticed him. He shrugged and entered the lift. As soon as the doors closed he turned to the cat, “But I had a date. And you didn’t.”

“I know. I was there. I was sitting behind you the entire time and you didn’t even notice me. Oasis was sitting next to your little friend and you didn’t utter a word to her either.”

Dan blinked a few times. He hadn’t even noticed the two of them at the café.

“What about on the walk home?”

“We were there. You were ignoring us, Dan.”

Dan got off on his floor and started walking towards his room, “I swear I just didn’t notice you. Now that you mention it I do remember seeing Oasis next to Phil but saying something or listening to her didn’t even occur to me.”

“It’s only been a day and that new boy is already fogging up your mind.”

“Maybe it’s better that way. I had a great day without you.” Dan shot back. He opened the door to his room and walked in, closing it behind him as soon as The Captain had walked in too.

“Can’t you go without me for a day?” Dan teased.

“I am a figment of your imagination. I cannot exist without you.”

“But you do exist. I did see Oasis so presumably I would’ve seen you too if I’d turned around.”

“But you weren’t paying attention to us.” The cat jumped up onto Dan’s desk, “Whatever. I don’t like Mr. Phil, you do. You’re the human, I’m the imaginary cat, what can I do?”  
‘Quite a lot’, Dan wanted to say. But he didn’t, because he didn’t want to give the cat any ideas. So he just shrugged and turned away.

 

Dan’s mum texted him that there were some leftovers for him downstairs in the big kitchen’s fridge at six pm, when Dan was doing homework. He had dinner at the bar in the kitchen and chatted to the cooks. Brianna, the new help, made some caramel apples just for the two of them and she sat down at the bar with him for a few minutes while they ate.

“Your school called.” She said.

“How would you know?”

“Because Callum picked up the phone and I overheard the call.”

Dan looked over to Callum, the main chef, who was standing in front of the stove with his eyes fixed on the pans there. Dan wasn’t surprised that the man hadn’t said anything about it, he wasn’t like that. He might not even tell Dan’s parents; he was very laidback and relaxed and probably didn’t care much about Dan’s school attendance as long as his grades were alright, which they were. Callum had been a family friend for years and when Dan’s mother had inherited the hotel from her parents her and Dan’s father had immediately hired Callum as their main chef.

“Did he tell my parents?” Dan asked, just to make sure.

“I don’t think so, but he might later.” She leaned forward a bit, “So where were you today? Out on exciting adventures?”

“I overslept, had breakfast in town, visited the bookstore, met a boy there, and went for drinks with him.”

“You had a date?”

“You could call it that.” Dan said in an attempt to come across as casual.

Brianna saw right through him, “Shut up. It was totally a date.”

“Okay, maybe it was kind of a date.” Dan laughed along.

Brianna was the kind of person who could speak for hours, no matter who she was with. She always had something to say and made sure there were no awkward silences in the conversation, which had quickly comforted Dan even though he wasn’t much of a social creature himself. She didn’t seem to ever judge anyone, she respected everyone’s opinion and although she talked a lot herself, she gave others the chance to speak too. 

“Want to hear about this rude customer who came in today?”

“Sure.” Dan said.

And he was immediately sucked into a new story and into an entire conversation about rude people in general. Because that was what Brianna was like.

 

Oasis met him at the door of the lobby when he was about to go on his walk. She didn’t give him time to apologise for ignoring her during his date with Phil, but immediately told him: “It’s all good, don’t apologise for not noticing me. I understand. The Captain didn’t seem as happy about it though.”

“I know. I spoke to him.” Dan pushed the door open and Oasis followed him outside. They were greeted with the flashing lights from the city that could be seen in between the buildings opposite the hotel. On their own street the traffic was calm at this hour on a Thursday and Dan crossed the street to the other side; he preferred that side as he had a better view of the tall apartment buildings on that side of the street. He was going to go into the centre of the city and he’d see more than enough flashing lights and street signs there, as long as he was on his own street he could just look at the TV screens through the windows and all the lights gradually turning off as the residents got ready for bed.  
This time he tried to pay as much attention to Oasis as possible, but his mind was still playing reruns of his date with Phil.


	4. Break Out! Break Out!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan gets too close to Phil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Chapter contains self harm.

Dan messaged Phil so much over the next two weeks that even his parents started to notice, even though he didn’t even see them that often. Brianna gave him her smug smile every time she saw him texting. He would turn red and she’d say something along the lines of, “Is that the boyfriend?” and then they’d both laugh.  
Callum hadn’t told his parents about him skipping school, and if Dan was honest, he wouldn’t have cared even if he did. His parents would probably make him go back to school, but he was doing that anyway. He wasn’t one to skip school even though he often thought of how nice it would be to just not go for a day. To just not deal with the stress for that one day. But he never did. It wasn’t a strange occurrence for him to not care about missing school though, even though he took school seriously. He just often found himself not caring about things that he knew he should care about. 

The day exactly two weeks after his date with Phil was an example of that. When Dan got home from school his mum was waiting for him in the backroom. Dan knew that meant bad news: she was never there when he got home. “Sweetie, can you sit down for a second?”

He sat down on one of the chairs from the old set of lobby furniture and looked at his mum expectantly. 

“It’s your grandmother.” She said carefully, “She passed away this morning, Dan.”

Dan felt a sense of indifference wash over him. He wasn’t sure if it was a coping mechanism or if he just really didn’t care, but all he could do was nod.

“I’m sorry. She died peacefully.”

He nodded again.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Can I go now?”

It was his mum’s turn to nod, “Go ahead. You can always talk to me, you know that, right?”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” He walked out into the lobby and got into the lift. He still felt strange. A bit senseless and overly sensitive at the same time. 

He wanted to text Phil about what happened, but wasn’t sure what that message was supposed to say. Was he supposed to say that he was sad even though he wasn’t? Or was he supposed to tell him how he really felt? Maybe he just shouldn’t text him at all. Phil didn’t know about his schizophrenia yet so maybe Dan could leave him in the dark about it for as long as possible. After all there was no way of knowing how the other would react to it. He might run away and Dan didn’t want that, he wasn’t ready to let the only person outside of his family who accepted him leave him.

In his bedroom he checked his phone, which had connected to the hotel’s wifi network and told him that he had two new unread WhatsApp messages. Both were from Phil. He threw his phone on his bed and sat down on the floor in the middle of the room. He was confused. About everything. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to feel sad about his grandmother or happy about Phil, and the main problem was that no matter which he was supposed to feel; he didn’t actually feel either of them.

To top it all off The Captain chose that exact moment to walk in with a face like hell and he sat down right in front of Dan. “We need to have a chat buddy.”

The Captain never called him buddy, unless he meant the exact opposite of the word.

“This is not the right time.” Dan replied.

“I don’t give a fuck if this is the right time or not, this is life or death.”

Dan finally raised his head to look at the cat sitting opposite him. “What is it?” He asked, clear indifference for the answer showing on his face.

“You need to stay away from Phil. I hate him. I hate him. He makes you forget about us and I can’t have that.”

“Who are ‘us’?”

“Me. Oasis. Everyone. You can’t leave us behind, Dan. You can’t do that to us. That would be like ditching your best friends for a boy, wouldn’t it?”

“Listen to me, I never asked for you. I don’t want you. Leave me the fuck alone, I’ve got more than enough on my mind.”

“What, Dan? What? Your dead grandmother? You don’t care about her. All you care about is that boy. You’re forgetting about everyone else.”

“That’s because Phil is the only person who’s actually paying close attention to me. No offense, but you’re an imaginary cat whom I just can’t erase and my parents are amazing people but they’re busy with their own lives and don’t have time for my fucking hallucinations.”

“Phil doesn’t know though. Tell him. Tell him and if he still wants you after he realises that you’re out of your goddamn mind then I won’t bother you about him anymore.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“You fucking don’t. But if you don’t either tell him or cut ties with him I will make sure you’ll regret it.”

Dan reached behind him and grabbed his phone of the bed. He opened WhatsApp and started typing a message to Phil without reading the ones he had received from him. “Here.” He said when he finally looked up with tears in his eyes. “Here it is: ‘I’m schizophrenic, you should probably know that. I hallucinate and I’m out of my fucking mind. I’m sorry, I should have told you before.’ Is that what you want? Do you want me to send him this? Or should I add a crazy emoji to emphasize my madness? Should I do that?” Dan frantically smashed his fingers on the screen until an unrelated row of emojis had appeared after the message he’d just typed up. “Here, do you want me to send him that? Would that make you really fucking happy?” He pressed ‘send’ and turned the screen towards the cat, “There you go. Just for you. I hope you’re happy now.”

The Captain just sat there and smiled, and it only made Dan more frustrated. He threw his phone back on the bed and stomped over to his desk. “Why do you always have to ruin everything?” He screamed. With a violent movement he wiped all of his stuff off the desk and watched them hit the floor with a strange feeling of satisfaction burning in the pit of his stomach. The framed pictures and stacks of books on his dresser were his next victims. He threw them on the floor one by one, after which he kicked at the books and bit down onto his lower lip hard in order to keep in his pained noises. He didn’t stop at the books; he kicked the bed until his feet hurt so much that he had to stop and then he marched into the bathroom and forcefully pulled the cabinet open, grabbed the box with blades and planted it on the counter. He heard the familiar bubble ringtone coming from his phone in the bedroom, indicating that he had received a WhatsApp message. For a second he was taken aback and stood there with a blade in his left hand in the empty bathroom. The question what the hell he was doing crossed his mind but he quickly abandoned it again. He didn’t want to know what Phil had to say. Maybe it was a message telling him that he’d been blocked. He didn’t want to know yet.

He cut open the only just healing cuts again and this time he didn’t watch the blood. He didn’t care about the results, he just wanted to feel the physical pain in an attempt to numb the pain in his head. The Captain didn’t come into the bathroom but Dan knew that he was amused with the whole situation. As long as Dan didn’t try to get rid of him The Captain didn’t care what he did or what happened to him.

He wanted to scream for help. For someone to come in and hold him, just tell him it was alright and that he was going to be okay even though he wasn’t. He really wasn’t.  
He really just wanted Phil to tell him that.

Phil.

The only person who made time for him, listened to him when he spoke, and never seemed to get tired of him. The problem was that he didn’t know about what was really going on with Dan. Or at least, he didn’t before. He did know now, Dan knew he’d even replied to the message. No one else would ever send him WhatsApp messages so it had to be Phil.

He wanted to be comforted by another person, but at the same time he wanted to comfort his own mind by hurting his body. All he really wanted was to just be at peace again. In moments like these, he forgot what it was like to feel calm and at peace, he forgot what it was like to feel like there was a point to life and the daily torture of dragging himself to school would all be worth it someday. But in moments where everything seemed fine, he did remember what it was like to feel like there was no reason to do anything, and he remembered what it was like to ache all over without any physical pain actually being involved. That way he could never get out. He was always carrying a bit of self-loathing and hopelessness within him that he could never get rid of. But when he was with Phil he didn’t have the time to let those negative thoughts even cross his mind for a second and it was honestly the closest to complete peace he had ever felt. His mind seemed to stop racing for a second and just focus on what was happening in that exact moment. 

He needed Phil.

He needed him now.

He dropped the blade, not caring where it would end up, and sprinted into his room, desperately searching for his phone. It was lying half underneath his pillow and he grabbed it and turned it on.

It displayed two messages from Phil, which he quickly opened. 

Before his eyes could see the words, the screen went foggy and he heard The Captain’s voice in his mind. “I told you to get away from him. I told you. Don’t break your promise.”  
“I didn’t promise anything, leave me alone.” Dan tried shaking his phone, shaking his head, throwing his phone, throwing himself onto the floor, but nothing helped. He couldn’t see the screen properly and he couldn’t get The Captain’s voice out of his head.

He needed to read those messages, he wanted to know if maybe someone else out there thought that life was worth it for him. Phil could accept him. He seemed like a person who would.

“Get out of my head!” He was screaming now. Hands pressed against his temples and knees pulled up to his chest. 

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturnus, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

“You’re not going to escape me, Dan. You know that, you’re not an idiot. I’m in your head. I am a part of you, and the only thing you can never escape from in this life is yourself. You can never escape me, it’ll always be just you and me. Maybe Oasis and some others.”

Oasis.

Dan started screaming her name, begging her to come in and stop this. He needed silence but knew he wasn’t going to get it. There was knocking on the door, but Dan picked up the nearest book and threw it against the wooden surface, “Leave me alone. Everyone. Everyone. Just leave me alone. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Dan, love, please open the door?” It was his mum. He tried to crawl over to the door to open it but he felt dizzy and sank down onto his stomach. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and voices, of which none would allow him to put them down. “You can’t escape yourself.” The Captain repeated.

“Mum?” Dan weakly attempted.

“Yes, Dan, it’s me. Can you open the door for me?”

“I can’t. I want to, mum, I want to. Please. I’m sorry. I want to mum, I want to open the door, but I can’t, I promise.”

“It’s okay, I believe you. Deep breaths, it’s going to be alright. Do you want me to get the spare key card for your room and come in?”

“No.” Dan reached for the door, even though he knew he was too far away. “Don’t leave me. Please. Don’t leave me with him.”

“Okay, alright, I will stay here then. I will call your father, is that alright?”

“Please.” Dan desperately squeezed his eyes shut, but immediately gave up on that idea after realising that it only made things worse. Even after years of living like this he still didn’t know how to deal with things like this, when his mind was flooding and all of the voices that had been living inside of him for all these years would start talking at the same time. Some would tell him to pull himself together and get up, others would tell him to go get that blade that he dropped back in the bathroom and put it to his skin. In that moment both options seemed equally appealing. 

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

He tried to focus on the voices telling him to get up, tried to block out the voices telling him to hurt himself or even kill himself. It didn’t work very well, but it worked well enough for him to be able to prop himself up onto his hands and knees and drag himself towards his phone, which was lying beside his bed. 

His blurry vision made him unable to see the screen properly, but he tried to unlock the phone nonetheless. It vibrated in his hand, telling him he’d entered the wrong code. He threw the phone across the room in frustration and allowed himself to sink back down onto the floor. 

If he listened closely he could hear his mum talk on the other side of the door, but the voices in his head were trying to drown her out and they were doing a fine job.  
“Mum.” He said. Just hearing the word roll of his own tongue brought him comfort for just a few seconds. Then he saw the door slowly open. The voices panicked, they told him to close the door, lock the other person out again. 

He tried to, he really did. He tried to grab something and throw it at the door, but as soon as he saw his mum walk in every urge to kick her out left him. “Mum.” He said again.  
“Hey honey, I’m here. I’m going to come closer, is that okay?”

He nodded weakly. He couldn’t understand her very well but he realised what he’d just given her permission to do when he saw her slowly move closer and then sit down beside him.

“How are you holding up? Do you need your medication?”

“No!” Dan didn’t think of the reply himself. The voices in his head made the decision for him before he even got the chance to consider it.

“Alright, okay. I’ve called Michelle, she’s on her way over here. Is there anyone else you would like me to get for you?”

She asked him that each time, even though she knew he didn’t have any friends, let alone anyone he would want with him during a break. But this time his answer would’ve been different. He would’ve replied with ‘Yes, I want Phil with me’, but he didn’t. Because he still didn’t know how the other had reacted to his message.

The reason he didn’t even reply to his mum’s question at all, was because he could now clearly make out The Captain, walking towards him with this grin on his face that could only be described as evil. “You’ve really got it now, don’t you? I told you you would regret it. I keep my promises. This is my friend, Greg. He’s your friend now, too.”

A large man had appeared behind the cat, and Dan couldn’t quite see what he was holding in his hand, but he could see it shimmer. A blade. A knife. An axe. Who knew what he had with him, and who cared? Maybe he would kill Dan, maybe he’d torture him and leave him for dead. His mum had to get out of here, she didn’t deserve this.

“Go away.” He told her.

“Why?” She asked.

“He’s going to hurt me, I don’t want him to hurt you too.”

“It’s okay Dan, it’s alright. No one’s going to hurt you.”

“He’s got a knife. Or an axe, I can’t see. Don’t you see?” He pointed and waved his hand around. “He’s going to cut me. Go away, mum. Leave.”

She got up slowly, “Nothing is going to happen, Dan. You’re going to be okay. Michelle will be here any minute now, she can make it all stop.”

“No. No, she can’t. She can’t do that. The Captain doesn’t want that. None of them want that. That’s why he’s here, it’s because I got too close to Phil and too close to trying to get rid of them.”

“I see, I understand.” She didn’t ask who Phil was. She just seemed to accept it as she slowly backed away.

Dan pulled himself up by the bed and dragged himself to the bathroom. 

The blade.

Where was the blade?

Where did he drop it.

Maybe if he cut himself first, The Captain wouldn’t get this man to do it for him. It was a foolish thought, but that didn’t even occur to Dan. He would do anything to get away, and if hurting himself had a chance of working out, he would take that chance. Gladly. 

He heard Michelle’s footsteps from behind him when she slowly approached. “Dan, it’s me; Michelle. Can I come in?”

She didn’t seem phased by him. He was sat on the floor in front of the bath and had a strange gleam in his eyes. He looked distant, as if his mind was somewhere else completely and he wasn’t comprehending what was happening around him.

He vaguely registered her crouching down beside him, but he was too far away. In his mind the blade was running over his arm like it never had before, but in reality both his arms were lying on his legs, motionless. He hadn’t found the blade he’d dropped and he didn’t look for the box of blades. He needed that specific blade that he’d dropped; it wouldn’t work otherwise.

He didn’t react to Michelle until he felt the needle enter his arm. He flinched and tried to pull away, but she was holding onto his upper arm and wouldn’t let go until she had slowly retracted the needle. “It’s alright, Dan. It’s going to be okay. Let go, you’ll feel better when you wake up. Try to breathe slowly, you’re safe, nothing’s going to happen to you. Keep breathing, you can let go if you just close your eyes.”

It didn’t sound believable to Dan’s ears, but the fact that it felt like his mind was drifting away from his body made him unable to even try and convince himself of it. His eyes were trying to close but he tried to fight it. “Let go. You can close your eyes, it’ll be okay.”

He didn’t know if he could trust that voice that he recognised but couldn’t place, but he obeyed anyway. He allowed his eyes to shut and he let his head fall back against the bath as consciousness left him.


	5. Let It Roll

Dan forgot his dream as soon as he opened his eyes. He remembered that it had been a nightmare and he’d been terribly scared, but he couldn’t recall what happened. 

His mum was sitting by his bed. She smiled down at him and patted his shoulder, “How’d you sleep, sweetheart?”

“Fine.” Dan replied. His eyes studied the white walls of the room. He wasn’t at home, that was for sure. He vaguely recognised this place and he quickly realised where he was when he realised that he couldn’t move his arms or legs: he was at the hospital. “Why did they restrain me? Did I lash out?”

“No, you didn’t. They’re afraid you’re a danger to yourself.”

The cuts immediately sprung to Dan’s mind and he pressed his chin down to his chest in order to look at what he was wearing: his hoodie. He was still wearing his hoodie. They probably hadn’t seen anything. “When can I leave?” Dan felt like the answer to that question would confirm to him whether they’d seen or not.

“Soon.” His mum replied.

“Soon as in ‘just a few days’ or soon as in ‘about an hour’?”

“About an hour, I think. Your dad is signing some paperwork and they’re probably going to come in to ask you if you want to take stronger meds later, but I reckon we can leave after that.”

“Where is my phone?”

“Your phone?” She looked confused. Dan had never asked about his phone this short after waking up before.

“Yeah, I think it was near my bed when I.. You know.”

His mum retrieved the phone from her handbag, “Here it is.”

“Do I have any messages?”

“How am I supposed to see? You’ve got a password on this thing, don’t you?”

“Just turn it on and look at the top left corner. What pictures do you see?”

“Some kind of phone with a circle around it.” She said when she’d followed his instructions. “If you give me your password I can read it for you.”

Dan bit his lip, “It may be private.”

She laughed at him, “Were you sexting someone, Daniel?”

Dan blushed and shook his head vigorously. 

“Yeah, you didn’t expect an old woman like me to know what that is, did you?”

“I didn’t. But I wasn’t sexting anyone, it’s just that I, I’ve like, been on a date with this person.”

“You think this girl has messaged you?”

“Right.” Dan said. “Girl.”

She gave him a puzzled look for a second before slowly nodding in comprehension, “A boy. You’ve been on a date with a boy and you didn’t want me to know that.”

“I would turn away in shame but that’s a tad difficult when restrained.” Dan joked.

“Dan, listen to me. I honestly could not care less about the gender of the person you’re dating, as long as they make you happy. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now what’s your password?”

Dan rolled his eyes and recited the code to her. He was going to have to change that later, no way in hell would he allow his mum to be able to unlock his phone at any given moment.

“I just pull this bar down and tap on the message, right?”

“That’s right.”

She turned the screen towards him. Seven new messages from Phil.

_‘In a lecture right now considering just getting up and leaving’_

_‘Are you home yet? Do you have time to go for drinks or something?’_

And then there were the two messages Dan had heard come in just after he’d sent his confession. He was a bit scared to read them, but he was also scared that the screen would start blurring again as soon as he’d attempt to read.

_‘Hey dude that’s alright man don’t be sorry’_

_‘You’re not out of your mind Dan it’s fine’_

Those were the messages Dan would’ve read near the beginning of his episode. There was this chance that they would’ve calmed him down enough for him to be able to pull himself together, but maybe they wouldn’t have. Dan didn’t think it was a big enough chance to wind himself up over.

There were three more messages, two from the night before and one from that morning.

_‘Are you okay Dan?’_

_‘Message me back I’m worried about you’_

_‘I know you’re getting my messages, if this is because of what you sent me last night, I promise I’m not mad and you didn’t scare me off either it’s fine I promise. Please just message me back.’_

“Do you think they’d untie me to let me reply?” Dan asked when he looked back up at his mum.

“Maybe if you ask nicely. I can type out a reply for you if you want.”

“No thanks. You can turn it off now.”

“You’re such a typical teenager. What secrets are on this phone of yours?” She laughed and waved the phone around a bit before getting up and putting it on her chair.

“I will be right back.”

“You know where to find me, I’m not going anywhere.”

Just as his mum left the room, the phone made its familiar bubble sound. Neither of his parents would message him because they knew he was restrained, so it had to be Phil. He hoped those damn doctors would come in and let him go soon so that he could finally reply. They weren’t even properly dating yet and Dan was already being a bad boyfriend by not replying to messages.

 

The door opened again after about ten minutes, and this time he saw his dad’s face appear.

“Hey buddy, how you holding up?”

“Couldn’t be better.” Dan replied sarcastically. “Do you have a doctor to undo these restraints?” He pulled on the binds to emphasise his point.

His dad nodded, and after him, Dan’s mum and a doctor walked into the room.

“Are you feeling better today?” The doctor asked him with a friendly smile while he walked up to the bed.

“I guess so. I just really want to answer these texts because I just heard another one come in.”

“You’ve got friends who are worried about you, eh?”

“Sort of.”

The doctor undid his binds and Dan immediately jumped up and grabbed his phone. He ignored the dizziness that set in because he’d moved too quickly, and unlocked his phone.  
 _‘Sorry I was in the hospital. I’m about to go back home though’_

The reply came before Dan got the chance to follow his parents out of the room.

_‘Hospital?? Are you alright??’_

_‘Yep I’m fine I had an episode kind of thing-y but I’m fine now’_

_‘Offer for drinks is still on, but I can just come by your house and we can like listen to some music together if you would prefer some peace right now.’_

_‘Music sounds good. When?’_

_‘Ready when you are’_

“Dan, are you coming?” His parents were both standing at the end of the hall and Dan had stopped in the middle to be able to message Phil back faster.

“Yeah.” He uttered absentmindedly.

_‘Will be home in 30. You can come by whenever you want. I’ll boot up Spotify’_

He finally shoved his phone back in his pocket and speed walked after his parents.

“Were you messaging Phil?” His dad asked.

Dan was about to reply but then tilted his head, “You know about Phil?”

“Of course. Your mum told me about him. So were you messaging him?”

“Yeah, he’s coming over in a bit.” Dan said.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” His mum asked.

“Shit, is my room still a mess from yesterday night?”

“It is. Do you want me to clean that up before you go in?” She offered.

Dan shook his head, “No thanks, I’ll tidy it myself.”

 

As soon as they got back to the hotel Dan took the lift up to his room and started putting everything back where it belonged; books back in their stacks on the dresser, notebooks and school stuff back on his desk, and then finally he walked into the bathroom and picked the blade up off the floor. He turned it around between his fingers for a few seconds before opening the cabinet and putting the blade back in its box. He was done just in time, as he heard knocking on the door when he stepped back into his bathroom. “Coming.” He called.

He opened the door to find Phil standing there. Messy hair, checkered shirt and dark skinny jeans. He was smiling down at Dan with a joyous grin as he stepped in. “I’m glad you’re okay, man. Is it inappropriate to express my happiness by hugging you?”

“Be my guest.”

Phil immediately replied by wrapping his arms around Dan and pulling him close to his chest. “When you didn’t reply even though you were receiving my messages I first thought you just weren’t interested anymore, but then I got really worried about you.”

“It’s alright now. Nothing happened, I threw a fit and got taken to the mental ward.”

Phil didn’t even seem fazed by his blatant use of the term ‘mental ward’, he didn’t seem put off by this whole mental illness thing at all, actually.

“Nothing I say seems to be able to dishearten you.”

“Nothing does. Look, Dan, just because you happen to be schizophrenic doesn’t mean I will just give up on you. You are not your illness, you are your wit, your intelligence, your love for books and anything alien. That’s who you are. I’ll gladly take the other things with that.”

Dan nodded with his head against Phil’s shoulder. It surely was food for thought. Dan had thought to himself that he was more than his illness plenty of times, and he’d tried to convince himself of this just as many times. But hearing it be said by someone else was different. Everyone at school treated him like he was his illness and when you live among that for long enough, you’ll start to believe it. Which was what Dan had done.

His parents and psychiatrist had tried to tell him there was more to him that his mental illness too, but that was kind of their job, wasn’t it? Like your mum telling you that you’re beautiful even though that’s not what you see when you look in the mirror. That’s what it was like.

 

“Now what kind of music do you like?” Phil carefully pulled away and Dan disliked the loss of touch right away. He wasn’t a very touchy-feely person, but this was different. At least, that was what he was trying to tell himself.

“Bands, mainly. Like a bit of everything, I guess.”

“Fantastic. Where is your computer?”

“Right, I had to tidy my room as soon as I got home so I didn’t have time to start my computer. Give me a second.” Dan pulled his laptop out of one of the drawers of his desk and turned it on.

“You didn’t have to tidy for me, my own room is a mess.”

“Yeah, but I threw a fit, remember. It was really bad.”

Phil shrugged, “I could’ve helped you clean, I don’t mind.”

Dan typed in his password and started up Spotify. “I guess.” He said.

Phil came to stand behind him and looked over his shoulder. “I see Muse, Radiohead and Björk. I can see this relationship working out.”

Dan laughed, “I do try to have a music taste that is attractive to other guys.”

“Mission accomplished then. You’ve got some very great music in that library.”

Dan clicked on one of the songs and Phil quickly recognised it, “Painting Flowers.” He exclaimed excitedly.

It didn’t take long before they were both dancing and loudly singing along to Dan’s playlist on shuffle, not really caring about the other guests.

 

Phil stayed with him all day and it was one of the calmest days Dan had had in months. It wasn’t just calm as in they didn’t do anything, it was calm as in it was quiet in his head, and he was able to easily ignore The Captain and Oasis (he felt a bit bad about ignoring Oasis, but abandoned that thought just as quickly as it had showed up). They ate lunch in the kitchen with Brianna and the other two helpers, Ryan and Clayton, and Dan’s mum even sat with them for a few minutes. 

And everyone was equally interested in Phil, that being very, very interested. After all this was about Dan, that boy they’d all grown protective of. When the two boys got up to go back to Dan’s room, Clayton grabbed Dan’s shoulder and whispered: “If he does something you don’t want, kick him in the balls. He seems nice though.” He then winked and let go of him.

“Thanks.” Dan grinned.

 

Dinner was spent in Dan’s bedroom, both sitting on the floor with a hot plate of pasta on their laps and their feet tapping against the floor to the rhythm of the Muse album that was playing on repeat from Dan’s computer. They hardly spoke, but the silence felt comfortable and light and neither felt the urge to break it. So they sat in silence and every now and again they’d look up, catch each other’s eyes, and just smile.

 

At eleven pm Dan glanced at the clock. Usually he’d be getting ready for his walk by this time. Phil was lying on his bed with one of Dan’s comics in his hands and his eyes trained on the page. Dan could ask him to come, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted him to come along. He usually went on his walks to clear his mind and be quiet for a while, but if he had someone with him that would mean it would be less relaxed and quiet. 

He sat down on the bed and grabbed a comic from the stack near Phil’s feet. 

No walk then.


	6. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! This chapter contains mentions of self harm.

When Dan got home from school three weeks later and walked into his room he found his mother standing in the doorway of his bathroom. He couldn’t see what she was holding in her hand at first, but when he stepped closer she raised the object a bit and he recognised it; that was his box of blades. “I can explain.” He said before he realised that he really couldn’t.

“Try me.” His mum said. She pointed at the bed and sat down herself.

Dan was quiet. He didn’t sit down, but he stayed near the door, as if he was planning on running away. She wouldn’t let him get away with this, he knew that. He wasn’t really going try to flee, even though he would love to do just that.

“Where?” She asked him quietly after about a minute.

Dan slowly rolled up his sleeves and turned his wrists away from himself for his mum to see. He was standing quite far away, but she didn’t ask him to come closer. She nodded slowly. “I expect you at the backdoor in ten minutes. No excuses.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to see Michelle.”

Dan groaned. He knew Michelle would give him hell over this. Well, not actually verbally, she was always careful with her words around him, but her facial expressions would say enough. They always did.

He watched his mother leave the room with his box in her hands and he didn’t turn away from the door until he could no longer see her. He then closed the door and dumped his backpack next to his desk. He still had his sleeves rolled up and he looked at the endless number of red lines covering the skin on the inside of his arms. They had caused him enough shit already, and all that was about to get worse. 

The Captain chose that moment to walk out of the bathroom and gesture back to that room, “Someone took your blades.”

Dan didn’t hesitate to grab a book from his desk and launch it at the cat. “I am not in for any of your bullshit right now.” He announced. “Where is Oasis?”

“Anywhere you want her to be. She’s in your head, remember?” He walked towards the door and disappeared as soon as the tip of his nose touched it.

Dan ran a hand through his dark hair and pulled his sleeves back down. They were going to ask him to take medication again, and he would tell them he didn’t want them again. He knew the drill. This time they would probably not let him get away with it that easily; there were the cuts on his arms now to prove to them that he really needed the meds. He sprayed on some deodorant and grabbed his phone. _‘Back to the hospital’_ , he messaged Phil.

The reply came two minutes later, when Dan was on his way down on the lift.

_‘What for?’_

_‘Long story short, I did some things to myself that I regret and my mum found out.’_

_‘Self harm?’_

_‘Exactly. My psychiatrist will ask me about medication and I will decline and that will probably be it. Don’t think it’ll get in the way of our pizza appointment tomorrow night’  
‘If it does I can always come over to bring you pizza at the hospital’_

Dan walked over to the Staff area, waved at Callum and the interns and sat down on a chair by the backdoor.

_‘Sounds great. I hate hospitals, pizza with you would certainly make it better.’_

He heard the door at the end of the hall open, indicating that his mum had walked in, and he got up from his chair. 

_‘Message me what’s happening, alright? Don’t get me worried again ;)’_

‘I’ll try to. We’re leaving now but if they feel like restraining me or whatever I’ll message you first..’

His mum opened the backdoor of their SUV for him and he climbed in the backseat. The fact that she didn’t have him sit next to her said enough; she was very upset with him. She probably wasn’t angry, but she was definitely disappointed in him, which was arguably even worse.

They drove in silence and Dan counted down the minutes till they reached the hospital. 

“Are you alright?” His mum asked him when he got out of the car.

At least she was concerned about him. Maybe things were going to turn out alright after all. 

 

The huge white hall they stepped into didn’t faze Dan anymore. He’d been here so many times that he didn’t even flinch when he saw the people with their little cards rolling after them and the IVs going into their hands and arms.

As his mum spoke to one of the people behind the information desk Dan leaned on the counter and looked around. He liked the little store in the back of the hall a lot, next to the cafeteria. That was were they sold the magazines, stuffed animals and colourful balloons. When he was younger his mum would take him there and let him pick something every time they came here, but she hadn’t done that in years. He didn’t miss the things he would pick out, but he definitely missed the experience of going in there and having this entire paradise of toys and magazines to choose from. They were mostly kids’ things and flowers, but Dan would still love to go there and buy something again sometime.   
He didn’t get time to bring it up, as his mum nudged his arm and took him upstairs. Dan knew where Michelle’s office was by now: she’d been his psychiatrist for about two years. Before that he’d had a psychiatrist called Dale, but he’d retired. Dan had only been a little upset by that; he didn’t like Dale that much. The only reason he was annoyed by it was that he would have to get used to a new psychiatrist and he hadn’t looked forward to the change.

“Come in.” Dan sighed when he heard Michelle’s voice coming from the other side of the door. The anticipated talk was coming closer and closer now.  
His mum opened the door and gave him a soft push to make him start walking. “Hi.” He mumbled, not making eye contact with Michelle.

“Hello Dan. How have you been since the last time I saw you?”

“Fine.” Dan shrugged.

“Your mother told me something on the phone which I was sad to hear about. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Dan shot an uneasy glance in the direction of his mum, who was still standing in the doorway.

Michelle looked over too and gave his mother a polite look, “Maybe it’s better if you wait outside, Karen. I’ll handle it in here, is that alright?”

His mum nodded, “Yes, of course it is.” She left the room and closed the door behind him. Michelle turned back to Dan as soon as the door had closed completely. “Do you know what your mother told me about?”

“About the box of blades, I assume.” Dan was careful not to use the terms ‘cutting’ or ‘self harm’.

“Indeed. Can you tell me, in your own words, why those were in your bathroom?”

“I think you know why.” Dan replied.

“I want to hear why from you, Dan. I don’t want to just assume.”

Dan rolled up his sleeves and places his arms on the desk. As if it made some kind of strange statement. Michelle didn’t seem shocked though, so apparently his attempt had failed.

“You use those blades to hurt yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me why?”  
“No.”

“Do you not know why you do this?”

Dan shrugged again, “I have to, every now and again.”

She nodded sympathetically, “I see. Can you tell me more?”

“I can only take so much negativity before I have to let it all bleed out.” Dan said.

“Right. And where does all this negativity come from, you think?”

“School, The Captain, sometimes Oasis, my own thoughts, basically everything.”

“I understand. But I heard from your mother that a new source of positivity has come into your life recently, is that true?”

Dan immediately broke into a smile, “Yes.”

“Can you tell me about this?”

“I met Phil at my favourite bookstore. He bought me a book and we went out for drinks. Then we texted a lot and he came by the day I was released from the hospital and we listened to music together. Then the past three weeks we have been texting a lot again and we went on, like, dates, I think, a few times. It was fantastic.”

Michelle smiled, “Does Phil know why you were in the hospital three weeks ago?”

“Yeah,” Dan nodded, “I texted him during, you know, my episode, and I told him about my schizophrenia. He knows I’m here right now.”

“That’s good, Dan, that’s very good. I can tell that you really like him. Does he know about what you did with those blades?”

“He does now. I messaged him just before I came here to tell him I was going to the hospital and he asked why, so I told him about it.”

“How did he react?” Michelle asked.

“He didn’t seem fazed, to be honest. About the same reaction I got when I told him I’m schizophrenic. He just doesn’t seem to think that any of this has to get in the way of, like, us, I guess.”

She nodded and put her hands together on the desk in front of her, leaning in a bit, “Now Dan, I think you’re expecting this question already, but have you thought about taking medication again?”

“I have thought about it, but I don’t want them.”

“Are you completely sure? You can always give me a call if you change your mind, you know that right?”

“Yeah, I know.” Dan said.

Michelle nodded. “Alright. I’m going to give you an alternative for the blades, okay?”

“Okay.”

She opened a drawer and handed Dan a handful of rubber bands. “You can wear them around your wrists, and when you feel like hurting yourself you can snap them against your wrist.”

“My mum isn’t giving back my blades, is she?” Dan asked as he took the rubber bands and shoved them in the pocket of his jacket.

“No.” Michelle confirmed. “We’re going to try to help you stop hurting yourself together, okay?”

And Dan just shrugged.

 

After his conversation with Michelle, his mum got called into her office and Dan was the one who had to wait outside for a bit. He walked out of the mental ward and into one of the halls with the regular patients. He peeked into each room as he walked past them and heard a few words from some conversations. Over the years Dan had realised that people in hospitals either spoke a lot about why they were in the hospital, or they tried to avoid that subject at all costs. 

At the end of the hall Dan got out his phone and checked his messages. Phil had messaged him about half an hour ago.   
_‘Everything okay there?’_

Dan hesitated for a second, but then tapped the call button and put the phone to his ear. He quickly walked over to an empty waiting area so that he wouldn’t disturb anyone and he sat down in one of the squeaky plastic chairs just in time to hear Phil pick up.

“Phil.”

“Hi Phil, it’s Dan.”

“Hey Dan, is something wrong?”

“Nope, everything is fine. But my mum is in the office with my psychiatrist right now, so I don’t have anything to do.”

“I appreciate that you thought of me in this moment of boredom.”

Dan laughed, “You were the first person on my mind.” He confirmed.

 

A few minutes into their call, Dan’s phone vibrated to indicate that he’d received a text.

“Was that an earthquake? I had a heart attack.” Phil commented.

“No, I got a text.” Dan laughed. He pulled the phone away from his ear and checked his texts. It was from his mother.

_‘Where are you love?’_

_‘Some waiting room. I’ll come down to the cafeteria.’_ Dan texted back, and put the phone back to his ear. “Done.” He announced.  
“Who was it?”

“My mum. She’s done talking so I’m now going downstairs to meet up with her.”

“Hang up the phone.” The Captain seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Dan didn’t get time to argue, so he quickly said goodbye to Phil and hung up the phone. “What do you want?” He whispered.  
“I want you to look at your arms. You can’t stop, you need it, remember?”

“I’m not up for that right now.” Dan replied. And for the first time in his life he started walking faster and he completely ignored The Captain while the latter was throwing a tantrum.


	7. Somewhere in Neverland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A soft date.

“Hi.” Dan greeted the other when Phil walked up to the big doors where he was waiting.

“How has my favourite person been since I last saw him?”

“I don’t know. You should ask him.” Dan smiled.

It was three weeks after Dan’s conversation with Michelle. Dan and Phil had been on a few dates after that, but this was the first major thing after their pizza date, during which they had been so busy chatting that they had almost forgotten about the pizzas in front of them.

The plans for this day weren’t very clear yet, but the knew Phil was going to stay the night. Dan’s mum had helped him set up the mattress next to his own bed earlier that day, but Dan had to admit that he secretly hoped Phil would join him in his own big double bed. He wasn’t planning for anything to happen; he just wanted them to be able to innocently share a bed. And even though Dan wasn’t a very touchy person, he still hoped there would be some cuddling involved.

The two of them took the lift upstairs to Dan’s room. “My mum’s letting us order room service tonight, and I’ve got my entire iTunes library filled up with Disney movies. I think we’re ready.” Dan announced.

 

When they walked into Dan’s room Phil immediately headed for the laptop on the desk. He opened iTunes and scrolled through Dan’s selection of films.

“I can call room service for some popcorn or crisps if you want.” Dan offered.

“That would be perfect.” Phil replied. “Life in a hotel sounds so great.”

“It usually is. I just can’t loudly sing in the shower because I’ll disturb all the guests and ruin their holidays with my voice.”

“I’m sure your singing is proper spectacular. Free concert every night.”

“They’re probably really happy they can hear me rap to Nicki Minaj, bet all those fancy rich people love it.”

“Secretly.” Phil said.

Dan grabbed the phone off his night stand and dialled room service while Phil continued to scroll through the list of films. Dan owned about 200 films, as he only ever spent his money on books and movies. His parents liked buying him iTunes cards, as Dan loved to watch movies and they put him in a calm and peaceful mood. These moods didn’t come very often, so his parents embraced every opportunity they got to get him into one.

“Brave.” Phil said when Dan put down the phone.

“Excuse me?”

“Brave. As in the movie. Let’s watch Brave.”

Dan laughed, “Alright, works for me.”

They sat down on the floor together, with the laptop on Dan’s office chair so that they didn’t have to crane their necks to see the screen. Dan pulled the throw blanket off his bed and put them over their legs, which was only slightly an excuse to sit closer to Phil.

“I’ve never actually seen this movie. I have hardly seen any Disney movies, to be honest.” Phil admitted as the opening credits rolled.

“Are you serious? I live for Disney movies.”

“Yeah I could tell by your iTunes library.” Phil replied, laughing.

 

The only time either one of them got up from their spot on the floor was when room service arrived with their popcorn and snacks. They watched four Disney movies, and when it was finally seven thirty Dan offered to call for room service for dinner. He got to his feet and dramatically let himself fall backwards onto his bed, arm reached out towards the night stand to grab the phone.

“You okay there?” Phil laughed.

“Fantastic.” Dan replied as his fingers touched the grey plastic of the phone. He nudged it towards him so that he could pick it up and pressed it to his ear, still lying on his back on the bed.

“Are you ticklish?” Phil asked.

Dan knew where this was going. “I might be.” He replied as he quickly pulled his legs to his chest and rolled up into a ball.

From where he was lying he should’ve been able to see The Captain sitting on his desk, but he didn’t. He was too focused on Phil to even think about either The Captain or Oasis, and they could’ve both been in the room the entire time and he wouldn’t have noticed. The Captain would probably give him hell over it the next day, or maybe when Phil had fallen asleep and he hadn’t, but for now he didn’t even spare a thought for the cat.

“Hi Chris.” He greeted the man from room service who picked up the phone.

“Hey Dan, you having a good time up there?”

“The best.”

“What can I do for you today?”

Dan lifted his head from the bed to look at Phil, “What kind of pizza do you want?”

“Just plain would be marvellous.”

“Two margaritas.” Dan said into the phone.

“Coming right up. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do in the mean time, eh?”

Dan laughed, “Don’t worry about me, Chris. I’ll be fine.”

“You better be.”

“Have you ended the call?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded and put the phone back on the night stand. The reason for Phil’s question struck him just a second too late, as Phil climbed onto the bed and jumped on him.

“Have mercy!” Dan shouted, laughing.

“If you’re not gonna be straight with me about being ticklish, I can’t promise anything.”

“I’m very ticklish.” Dan admitted immediately. 

“Too late.”

Dan felt Phil’s long fingers dig into his ribs as he struggled to get away from the other’s grip. “I’m a good person, I don’t deserve this.” He cried out when Phil hit a particularly ticklish spot near his abdomen. 

“Stop waving your arms around, you almost hit me in the face.” Phil laughed. He tried to grab Dan’s arms, which were flailing in between their bodies. He eventually got a grip on Dan’s left arm and pinned it to the bed above Dan’s head. When Dan reached with his other arm to try and break his left free, Phil took the opportunity to grab Dan’s other arm too and pin it next to his first. He firmly held Dan’s arms in place with one hand, and let the other freely roam Dan’s body. The latter had tears in his eyes by this point, trying to use his best wrestling skills to get out from underneath Phil, but he clearly wasn’t strong enough.

“Mercy, mercy, I can’t breathe.” Dan tried in between laughs.

“You’re too adorable.” Phil laughed. His hand stilled on Dan’s chest, giving Dan the chance to catch his breath.

“That was brutal.” Dan said, trying to ignore Phil’s previous comment.

“You looked so cute and happy, it was great.”

This time Dan couldn’t pretend to not have heard it. He blushed and turned his head away. “I wasn’t cute, I was dying.”

“Yes, but in a very cute way.”

Dan couldn’t do much more than lie there with his head turned to the side. His hands were still pinned above his head and his body was stuck underneath Phil’s, he had nowhere to go.

Phil was looking at him with a fond expression on his face, and Dan kind of hoped he would lean down to kiss him, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready.

He felt Phil let go of his wrists. “You okay?” He asked.

“Yeah.” Dan replied.

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine, I’m not uncomfortable.” Dan flashed him a smile. He felt the redness gradually leave his face until he felt normal again. Phil lay down next to him. He always had this sense of calm on his face and a very peaceful atmosphere with him wherever he went. Dan didn’t even feel uncomfortable lying so close to him.

Just as Dan thought Phil might lean in to kiss him, there was a knock on the door. He cursed under his breath and sat up. 

“Way to ruin the moment.” Phil commented.

Dan laughed and walked over to the door. 

“Did I interrupt something?” The girl at the door, Cady, asked. She looked Dan up and down, whose clothes looked ruffled and whose hair was messy. Then she peeked into the room behind him and saw Phil lying on the bed, clothes and hair in the same condition.

“Sort of.” Dan replied. He accepted the pizzas she handed him and she rolled her eyes, “Your parents probably don’t know that you’re rolling around in bed with some guy, do they?”

“I don’t know, you should ask them.” He replied before closing the door in her face.

“Rude.” Phil said.

“New girl. My parents hired her two weeks ago and she clearly doesn’t understand how stuff works around here.” He tossed one of the pizzas onto the bed and sat down next to Phil with the other box in his hands. Phil propped himself up on his elbows and wrapped an arm around Dan’s waist, pulling him further onto the bed and closer to himself.  
“What do we have planned for the night?”

“Nothing.” Dan replied as he opened his box of pizza.

Phil leaned forward to grab his own pizza. “More Disney movies?”

“If you want.” Dan nodded, stuffing some pizza in his mouth.

 

The night went by way too quick. Dan’s mum texted him at half past midnight to ask him if he was going to bed soon, and Dan was once again left with the choice if he wanted to ask Phil to come on his walk with him. Now that he was knocked out of his lovey dovey haze he finally noticed The Captain, who was now sitting in front of the door. The cat immediately realised Dan had spotted him and spoke up, “Well, well, have you been too busy to pay attention to me all day? You hardly look at me or Oasis when that boy is here. I told you he was trouble.” 

Dan had to repress the urge to give him a snarky reply, so he quickly turned around and before he’d properly thought about it he had already asked the question. “Want to come on my walk with me?”

“Your walk?” Phil asked.

“I always go on a walk before I go to bed. Calms me down.”

“You sure you want me to come with you then?”

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” Dan said. He was regretting asking the older boy. He’d been so busy worrying about whether the walk would lose its effect on him, that he’d forgotten to worry about whether Phil would even want to come with him.

“No, no, I’d love to come.” Phil said. He got up from the bed and smiled at Dan. “Really.”

He grabbed his shoes and started putting them on. Dan had to admit that he was kind of surprised. He hadn’t expected Phil to actually want to come with him. Then again, he hadn’t expected Phil to want anything to do with him at all after he’d told him what he was really like.

“Ready?” Phil asked as he got up.

Dan nodded and opened the door to let Phil out first. The latter stopped dead in his tracks next to Dan though and Dan gave him a questioning look. 

There was a second in which nothing happened, then Phil offered Dan his hand and flashed him a hopeful smile. Dan felt the blush creep onto his cheeks, but he gladly accepted Phil’s hand in his. It felt warm and safe as Phil wrapped his bigger hand over Dan’s smaller one.

“Are you sure you want to, like, hold hands?” Dan asked, just to be certain.

“As sure as I can be.” Phil confirmed as he pulled the two of them outside and closed the door behind them. “Let’s go.”

Phil seemed almost proud to be holding hands with Dan as they walked out the lift and into the lobby. Brianna, who was standing at the bar, gave Dan a knowing look and winked.   
It was a bit cold out. A soft wind roamed the streets of London as they made their way over to the centre of the city. “So you do this every night?” Phil asked softly.

“I try to.” Dan replied. “Sometimes I can’t, but on good days I’m always out here.”

They were quiet for a few minutes.

“Can I ask you something? It’s not meant to be mean or degrading, I promise.”

Dan raised an eyebrow, “Okay, shoot.”

“Do you see your, like, you know... Do you see them all the time?”

“Not all the time. They’re usually around though, but on good days I get to ignore them for a bit. On bad days one of them won’t let me ignore him. He’s the one who gets me to hurt myself and sometimes tells me to just end it already.”

“Do me a favour, eh? Never do the latter. Please.”

“We haven’t even known each other that long.” Dan huffed.

“Like two months. I’d say that’s long enough to know that I really do not want to lose you.”

“Okay, so can I ask you something now?” Dan asked, more or less trying to avoid the subject of hallucinations this night.

“Definitely.”

“Where are you trying to go with me?”

“Like, right now?”

“No, I mean in general. With, like, us, I guess.” He said. He was a bit unsure of what he was asking himself, but he hoped Phil would understand what he was trying to ask.

“I don’t know.” Phil said honestly. “We’ll see where this goes, won’t we? I’m in no hurry to find out what we’re supposed to be or become. We’ll see it when it comes.”

Dan allowed himself to relax a bit. Phil wasn’t going to try anything with him, apparently, and that meant that he would get to enjoy his time with Phil the way it was right now for at least a while longer.

 

“Looks comfy.” Phil commented upon being told that the mattress would be his bed tonight.

“You can sleep in my bed if you want, I’ll sleep on the mattress.” Dan offered immediately.

“Do you think we could both sleep in your bed? You know, if I promise not to try anything?”

Dan nodded eagerly, “God, I was hoping you’d say that. We could even share a bed if you didn’t promise not to try anything.”

Phil looked down at his own bare chest, “Do you mind if I sleep like, in just my sweatpants or do you want me to put on a shirt?”

“I don’t mind.” Dan replied as he pulled his own T shirt over his head. “I always sleep in a shirt but no shirt sleeping doesn’t bother me.”

“Just making sure.” Phil grinned. He pulled the covers back and crawled under them. “Join me, your Highness.” He joked, gesturing towards the other side of the bed.

Dan crawled under the covers next to him and pulled them up to his chin.

“Is cuddling allowed?” Phil asked.

“More than allowed.”

“Perfect.” Phil immediately wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist and pulled him close, so that Dan could bury his face in the older boy’s chest. He hesitantly put his own hand on Phil’s waist, and relaxed when he realised that everything was alright. He felt Phil tuck his chin over his head and closed his eyes. He was going to sleep better than he’d done in years.


	8. Stay Awake (Dreams Only Last for a Night)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After Phil leaves.

Dan woke up at eleven that Sunday morning. Phil wasn’t next to him anymore, and for a short second he was afraid that the other had left him, but then Phil’s head appeared in the doorway of the bathroom. He had a bright smile on his face and a toothbrush in his hand. He waved, disappeared into the bathroom, spit out the toothpaste and reappeared without the toothbrush. 

“How did you sleep?”

“Great.” Dan said, rubbing his eyes.

“I woke up half an hour ago, didn’t want to wake you. You looked cute. You still do.” He smiled and walked back over to the bed, sitting down near Dan’s feet. “Do you crave breakfast or can I come back to bed?”

“You can come back to bed.” Dan said. He raised the covers to invite the other back in.

Phil accepted the invitation and lied down next to him. “Come here.” He whispered. He turned Dan over onto his side and pulled his back against his own chest. He tucked his leg over Dan’s and buried his face in the boy’s hair. “Hm, you’re warm.” He muttered.

“Thanks.” Dan moved back into the Phil’s body. He closed his eyes again and let himself drift off once again.

This time he didn’t wake up until there was knocking on the door. 

“Can’t a man get his sleep in this place?” Phil groaned. 

“Who is it?” Dan called with a croaky voice, ignoring Phil’s comment.

“It’s me.” His mum’s voice sounded from the other sound of the door. “Are you two going to come down for lunch or are you staying in there for the rest of the day?”

“Well, if the latter was a serious option, I’d probably pick that one. I’m assuming that was sarcastic though, wasn’t it?”

“Completely.” His mum confirmed. “Come on, you two. Callum made pancakes for lunch. You’ve got to hurry if you want some.”

Dan wasted some curses on the pillow his face was buried in. 

“Now, now, that is not the right pancake attitude.” Phil said.

Dan couldn’t help but smile at that. “Stop. I’m trying to be annoyed here.”

“I don’t like when you’re annoyed. Your smile is cute.”

Dan turned around to face Phil and looked up into his eyes for a few seconds. “I don’t know what you see in me, but I sure am not complaining.”

“I’ve got a list of things that I see in you, but by the time I finish telling you them all we’ll have missed both those pancakes and dinner. Possibly breakfast too.”

Their conversation got interrupted by a song that started blasting through the room from somewhere on the floor. 

“That would be my phone.” Phil said. He climbed out of bed and moved some stuff aside to reach his iPhone, which was lying on the wooden floor.

“Phil Lester.”

“Oh, hi mum.”

“No, I’m still with Dan, don’t worry.”

“Mum, we literally watched Disney movies and then fell asleep. I couldn’t have tried anything if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.”

Dan was laughing in the bed behind him. He’d propped himself up on his elbows and was observing Phil’s every movement.

“Shit, was that today?”

“Sorry. I mean darn it, was that today?”

“I’ll be down in twenty, that good? You know where to pick me up?”

“I know, I know, I’m a horrible person, I’ll see you in twenty.”

“Love you too. Bye mum.”

Phil tossed the phone onto Dan’s desk and turned around, “I promised my mum I’d go visit my grandma for her birthday today, I’m so sorry. She’s picking me up outside in twenty minutes. If we hurry we can still grab some pancakes together?” He gave Dan an apologetic look.

To his relief Dan smiled and got out of the bed. “We better be fast then. How old is your grandmother?”

“She turned 83 yesterday.” Phil tossed Dan a shirt and pulled on his own trousers.

 

“Your shirt’s inside out. Wild night?” Brianna winked at Dan as she handed him a plate of pancakes.

Dan glanced down, “My shirt’s not inside out.” He said.

“I know. Just wanted to see if you’d get scared.”

“We didn’t have sex, Bri.”

“That’s what they all say.” She turned to Phil and handed him his plate, “Are you going to deny it too?”

“Nothing happened between us. Maybe some cuddling, but that was it.”

“Ah, some cuddling? That’s getting somewhere.”

“Oh my god, Brianna.” Dan laughed and stuffed some pancake in his mouth.

“I’m not getting involved in your dramatic romance, don’t mind me.” She raised her hands in surrender and went back to help Callum.

“She’s quite something.” Phil said.

“She’s definitely something. Not sure what yet.”

“You like it though.”

“Sure I do. She’s a nice girl.”

Phil opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again and reached behind Dan. “What is this?” He held up a post-it note which he’d apparently plucked from Dan’s back.

Dan immediately snatched it from his hand and turned bright red. “A note.” He uttered.

Phil raised his eyebrows, “Alright, okay. That’s okay.”

“Phil, your mother is waiting for you outside, dear.” Dan’s mother peeked into the kitchen just to say those words before disappearing again to get back to whatever it was that she did at the hotel. Dan actually wasn’t quite sure what she did all the time, running around, worrying about literally everything.

Phil stuffed the last piece of pizza in his mouth and ruffled Dan’s hair before getting up from his barstool, “I’ll call you, yeah?”

“It would be an honour.” Dan watched Phil leave the kitchen and even leaned back on his stool a bit to allow his eyes to follow Phil out the door and watch him get into a shiny black car.

 

When Dan got back upstairs he knew he was in for trouble as soon as he opened the door to his bedroom. He even considered just closing the door and going back downstairs, but he figured that fleeing wouldn’t do much for him in the long run.

“Right, throw it at me. What do you want?”

“Is that boy making you into a cocky asshole now too?” He could hear the Captain’s voice, but he couldn’t actually see the cat.

“Where are you?”

“Who cares?”

The moment in which those words were spoken was Dan’s last moment of silence before all hell broke loose in his head. He sank down onto his knees and pressed his fists against his temples. It sounded like every voice he’d heard over the past few years was suddenly speaking at the same time. The quiet and peace he’d enjoyed when he’d been with Phil was all slammed away in a matter of seconds and he was reduced to whimpers and pleas to make it stop. 

It was like standing in the middle of a crowded disco, with loud music, lots of sweaty people, and lots of flashing lights, but all the people there were talking to him, trying to gang up on him. “Leave me alone.” He tried, but he knew it was no use. He’d had this before. Last time he’d been admitted to a hospital, and although that had seemed terrible when he’d been there, right now that seemed like an amazing idea. If only he could make it to his phone to call his mum and ask her to help him. Or his dad. Or Michelle. Or Phil. Anyone would do, really. As long as they could get him away and get him to the hospital. Just getting him away would be enough too.

The voices in his head took up all his room to think and he couldn’t remember where he’d left his bloody phone. It took him a good few minutes to realise that it was just in his pocket, where it always was. He pulled it out and pressed it to his ear.

Number first, he reminded himself.

He held the phone in front of him, but his hands were shaking and the screen was blurry. 

He managed to eventually tap ‘1’, the emergency shortcut to dial his mum.

“Mum? Are you there?” He stuttered when he heard the beeping stop. He couldn’t hear her reply, couldn’t hear anything anymore.

“Please.” He spat out. He was squeezing the phone in his hand so hard that he’d have been worried to break it if he hadn’t been so busy trying to just freaking say the words he had to say and open the door to let someone in.

The voices in his head started to collide with each other, until they were all chanting. They were telling him to get out his blades. They wouldn’t leave him alone until he’d bled them all out. “They won’t leave, mum. They want me to cut them out. Please. I don’t want to cut. I don’t want to. Mum, please help me. Please.” He was begging her to do something, but he wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do himself. But god, she was his mum and she could make this stop. She could make it stop hurting like she’d done with all the bruises when he was a kid.

“I’m coming up. Open the door.” It was the only thing Dan could hear over the sound of the chanting in his head before the voices blurred her out again, but it was enough for him. He pulled himself to his feet, and for a few seconds he was debating whether to go into the bathroom and give in or go open the door for his mum. The voices totally agreed with him when he contemplated getting the blades, but then Phil popped into his head. The words Phil had said. That he couldn’t go, that Phil didn’t want to lose him, and he took a few wobbly steps over to the door to the hall. Letting his heart make the decisions was hard when his mind was trying to pull him in a complete opposite direction. 

“Dan?” 

She was already there. His mum was there. He just had to open the door and she’d get him away from the temptation to give in. The voices seemed to realise that too, because they started chanting again. Worse things this time. Things Dan was even more desperate to drown out. He pulled open the door and immediately fell to his mother’s feet. “Please.” He managed to say. “It’s okay, Dan. I’ve called some people for you, alright? They should be here any minute now. I’ve got you.” She sat down next to him on her knees and cupped his face in her hands. “You’re safe with me, Dan. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, love, it’s fine. You did a brave thing, calling me. Good job, I’m proud of you. I always am. You know that, right?”

Dan didn’t reply.

“Just a few more minutes. They could be here any minute now.”

He felt another pair of hands on his shoulders and heard his dad’s voice say something, but he couldn’t understand what was being said. He heard his parents talk to each other and forced himself to listen to them. He could hear their words, but the meaning didn’t ring through. It was enough though: just hearing their voices distracted him from the chaos in his mind for a second.

His own mind was his worst enemy, and he didn’t have the guts to let his heart rule his mind. 

 

Dan didn’t remember much from the ambulance ride to the hospital. He knew that he’d been restrained, but his mind couldn’t shut up long enough to let him think of a reason why. Had he lashed out at anyone? Was he a danger to himself or others? The stretcher was rolled out the ambulance and towards the huge white building. “We can’t go in there.” Dan said, repeating what The Captain had said to him only half a second ago.

“It’s going to be alright, kid.” One of the nurses told him. The man opened the glass doors of the hospitals to let them through and he was immediately taken to a lift. Somehow Dan remembered that the mental ward was on the third floor, although it didn’t seem like the most useful information his mind could’ve chosen to remember at this moment.  
“We need to go back.” Dan said. He was almost shouting, unable to keep his voice down. They entered the mental ward, Dan recognised the big doors he’d walked through so many times. They were used to screaming people down here, Dan supposed.

“Make them take you back. This place will infect you with all those illnesses.” One of the voices told him. After his episodes Dan never understood why he’d blindly believed everything he’d been told by his voices. But right now, their words seemed completely reasonable. He was too far gone to question their truthfulness.  
“They will kill me. The germs, they’ll get to me.”

The nurses knew better than to try and argue with his hallucinations. They kept quiet and rolled the stretcher into on of the rooms. It was empty, apart from a bed in one corner and a chair in the other. There were bars on the windows, to make sure the patients wouldn’t try to get out that way.

“You’re already catching them. Do you feel that?” He could hear the voices laugh at him.

He felt a wave of relief wash over him when the needle was pushed into his arm. For one more moment he struggled against his restraints, then he blacked out.

 

He woke up with restraints keeping his arms in right angles with his hands next to his head. His wrists were facing the ceiling and he wasn’t wearing his jumper anymore. They’d seen the scars on his wrists.

“You fucked up, Dan.” The Captain announced.

“Where are you?” Dan mumbled in reply.

“In your head. You can’t see me right now. You went out of your mind, you’re fucking crazy, Dan.”

“I know.”

He heard the door unlock and from the corner of his eye he could see it open. Someone in white walked in, and when they came closer he recognised the woman as one of the doctors who’d treated him before.

“Hi, Dan.” She greeted.

“Hi.” He said.

“Haven’t seen you in a while.” 

“Seven weeks and two days.” Dan replied.

“Right. Wouldn’t exactly say it’s good to see you back here.” She gave him a warm smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.”

“Can you give me a number?”

It was a system they’d started using with him when he’d only just been brought in, when he was eleven, and absolutely terrified of all the white halls and serious doctors. By now he was used to it all, but the system had always been a nice way to stay grounded during times like this.

“Seven, maybe eight.” He said.

He’d never used one, although he’d definitely have described the day before as a strict number one, had anyone asked. He’d never used number ten either, simply because he felt like he could only use that one if he was feeling absolutely great. No hallucinations, no voices. And he’d never felt that way. Not since it all began. He couldn’t even remember what it was like to see and hear only the things other people could see and hear too.

“Good. That’s good. Have you thought about changing medications? We could give it to you just now, just to try it. If you want to, of course.” Dan hesitated. For the first time in all these years, he hesitated before he shook his head. His parents had made him try different medications when he was still underage, but as soon as he turned eighteen he’d pushed the entire idea of it to the back of his head. Never to be looked at again. He’d just keep using the small dose he’d been taking for years, which at this point he wasn’t really sure did anything at all.

The situation had changed now, though. He just wanted to be able to spend time with the boy he was starting to fall in love with without having to worry about the trouble that would be awaiting him as soon as that boy had left. 

After all, he would always be coming home to his own mind.


	9. The Next Best Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a hospital kind of life.

The position of Dan’s arms was changed every few hours, to make sure his arms didn’t start hurting. Right now they were above his head, so that he could hardly move them. It was nice to bend them again though, after being restrained with them straight at either side of his body for the past few hours.  


His parents were always right outside the door, Dan knew that. He could catch a glimpse of them every time a doctor or nurse walked in to either change his restraints or feed him. They were only allowed in once every now and then, to help Dan ‘rest’, even though Dan didn’t deem that necessary at all. He was calm enough.  


He was surprised, to say the least, when the door opened again only an hour after his parents had visited and he’d been fed. He craned his neck trying to see who’d walked in.  


“There’s someone here to see you, are you feeling up for a visit?” His regular nurse was standing beside his bed.  


“Who is it?” His heart fluttered at the possibility that it may just be Phil. He wouldn’t know how the other would’ve figured out where he was, but he didn’t really care either.  


“Philip Lester. You mother called him for you, she said you would want to see him.”  


“I do.” Dan said, trying to remain calm so that the doctors wouldn’t take this opportunity to take Phil away from him.  


“Alright, I’ll call him in.”  


He heard her footsteps leave the room and be followed by muffled talking in the hallway. The door was pushed open again, and out of the corner of his eye he immediately recognised Phil’s red plaid shirt.  


“Hey Dan.” He smiled at Dan and pulled the chair up to the bed. “I was worried about you, you weren’t answering my texts.”  


“I thought you were at your grandma’s.”  


“I was, but then she turned out to have bought me a Buffy DVD and I wanted to watch it with you. So I texted you as soon as I was on my way back home, but you weren’t replying, and you didn’t pick up my calls either. So um, I kind of called the hotel and asked about you. Your mother called me back about an hour ago, I was so relieved to hear that you were doing alright.”  


“Define alright.”  


“Restrained in a hospital bed but alive.”  


Dan laughed, “If that’s your definition of alright, then I’m a bit more than alright. I’m doing well, actually. You know, if you leave out the whole hospital part. I’m physically okay and my head is shutting up for now.”  


“Good. I’m happy to hear that.” He didn’t seem to say that just because he felt like he had to. He actually seemed to mean it. Then again, Phil seemed to have been very sincere about everything he had said on this topic so far.  


“I have the uncontrollable urge to tickle you, but that would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it?” Phil broke their serious conversation. He had his goofy smile on that Dan loved so much.  


“Not to mention very cruel, as I am currently bound to this bed and cannot fight back.”  


Phil raised his arm and his hand came dangerously close to Dan’s stomach.  


“Don’t you dare, jackass.”  


“Or what?”  


“I will turn into the Hulk and pull apart the restraints, only to end your existence.”  


“Violent.” The jokingly made threat didn’t do its job very well. Phil softly grazed his fingertips over Dan’s stomach. The latter tried to wiggle out of his reach, but of course, to no avail.  


“You have no heart.” Dan stated.  


“I do not.” Phil confirmed.  


It wasn’t hard to turn Dan into a laughing mess beneath his hands now that the boy couldn’t fight back. He tried to move away, but even while he was attempting this he knew it was no use.  


He only noticed the door had opened when Phil’s hand stopped moving on his stomach and the other’s face turned to the door.  


“Can you make sure he doesn’t get too hyper, please? We need to keep him calm here.” Dan recognised the voice of one of his female nurses but he wasn’t quite sure which one.  


“I’m completely calm.” He said, still a little out of breath.  


She grinned, “I can see that.” She didn’t seem to serious about it. She was supposed to keep him calm and peaceful, but it was easy to recognise that Phil was in no way upsetting him. On the contrary, he was calming him down more than any silence or restriction could.  


“Just try to keep it down a bit, okay?”  


“Sure, will do.” Phil said. He patted Dan’s stomach playfully and pulled back his arm, only to raise his other and bring it up to the headboard of the bed. Dan wasn’t sure what his intentions were at first, but then he felt soft fingertips stroking the scars on his right arm. He let out a shaky breath and allowed himself to relax.  


Phil was looking at him with that calm and welcoming expression again. Dan closed his eyes involuntarily. His fingers curled and reached out to try and touch Phil’s hand. Everything around him was completely forgotten when Phil moved his hand to wrap around Dan’s. Maybe it was just in his head, but it felt like the warmth of Phil’s hand was spreading through his arm. For once he didn’t care about the fact that maybe it was only just him thinking this, without it really being there. It felt nice.

\--

“How long are you staying for?” Dan woke up from his dream from the hushed voice of a nurse near the door.  


“As long as you’ll let me.” Came Phil’s whispered reply. Dan could still feel his hand on his own and he softly squeezed it to let him now he was awake.  


He carefully opened one eye to find Phil looking at him with his usual smile. “Morning, pretty boy.”  


“Excuse me?”  


“It’s not actually morning. It’s seven pm. I lied.”  


“No that’s not what I meant.”  


Phil turned to the nurse again, “So when are you kicking me out?”  


“We aren’t, for now. Though Dan’s parents would like to see him for a bit.”  


“They can come in too.”  


“You’ll have to leave the room.”  


“Why?”  


The nurse was quiet for a second, “Regulations.” She said.  


“I see. Can I go back in after that?”  


“Sure.”  


“Alright.” He eyed Dan for a few seconds before slowly leaning in and pressing a kiss to the boy’s forehead. “I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”  


Dan just nodded, left speechless.

\--

“I had a talk with some doctors.” Phil announced when he walked back in.  


Dan was sitting with a tray of food on his lap. His hands were now next to his head, and the end of the bed had been moved up, so that he could sit up to eat his food.  


“And?”  


“I’ll tell you when you finish eating.” He sat back down in the chair next to the bed and started fiddling with the food on the tray.  


“You’re making me curious.”  


“Good.” He raised the spoon and held it in front of Dan’s face. “Open up.”

\--

“So what did you talk about with the doctors?”  


Phil put down the tray on the floor next to him. “Right.” He started. “So I told them about your walking habits, and that I’d like to take a walk with you, just for like a few minutes would be okay. And they were like ‘We’re actually not supposed to allow that’, so I begged them to make an exception and they did. We can go on a walk in a bit.”  


“Are you serious?” Dan eyes widened.  


“Completely. We’re not allowed out for too long, we have to stay inside the building, and I have to stay with you the entire time, but they think you could use some outside time so they’re letting us do it.”  


“That’s amazing. Thank you.”  


“Of course. Now they’re going to come in to untie you in a few minutes. Get ready.”

The halls weren’t exactly the perfect environment for a late-night walk. They peeked into the small windows on the doors and looked at the other patients. Most of them were lying in bed and didn’t notice them, but others were sitting on the floor and made eye contact. Some even waved at them. “Do you come here often?” Phil asked.  


Dan let out a laugh, “This isn’t the place for that pickup line, Phil.” He said.  


“No, I didn’t mean it as a pickup line.” Phil replied, laughing now too.  


“I don’t come here that often. My psychiatrist isn’t on this block, and I don’t usually have episodes this bad. Maybe four times a year, tops.”  


“Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but how often do you get restrained?”  


Dan grinned, “If it’s bad enough to be taken to the hospital, there’s a fifty percent chance it’s bad enough to restrain me. Especially after they found out that I self harm. They probably won’t let me out of their sight as long as I’m here anymore. I’m honestly surprised that they let you take me out of the room for this walk.”  


“Me too.” Phil admitted. “I didn’t think my soliloquy was going to do much good, but hey, it wasn’t going to do any harm either, so I might as well try.”  


“I appreciate this a lot, thank you.”  


“My pleasure.”

\--

Sleeping with his arms pinned beside his head was not what you’d call comfortable. He woke up at six that morning, unable to go back to sleep as there was a ray of sunlight hitting him straight in the face through the window. The rest of the room was still covered in the weak twilight of the early morning and Dan was only just able to make out the chair, which had been moved to the wall opposite the bed.  


Two hours went by before the door opened and one of the nurses walked in with a tray of breakfast. “Morning, Dan.” She greeted.  


“Hi.” Dan replied.  


“You hungry?”  


“Yeah, I’ve been up for like a few hours already.”  


She tilted his bed up straight and pulled the chair up to the bed. Dan could totally live with being restrained. It was the having to be fed he had a problem with. “I can eat by myself.” He tried. But of course that was no use.  


After breakfast Dan got to lie down for another hour, before the door opened again. He expected to see either his parents or Phil, but he was greeted with Michelle’s face.  


“Hi, Dan. How are you feeling?”  


“You know, could be better, could be worse.” He replied.  


Michelle sat down on the chair next to his bed. “I heard you went for a walk with Phil last night.”  


“I did.”  


“How was that?”  


“It was great, I loved it.”  


“How do you feel about Phil?”  


Dan laughed, “We’re going to talk about my feelings for Phil here?”  


“Do you not want to talk about him?”  


“I didn’t say that.”  


“Alright.” She nodded, “So how do you feel about him?”  


“I like him. I like him a lot. I may have a crush on him.” He averted his gaze, but was quick to add, “Don’t tell him that though.”  


“I won’t.” She promised. “How do you feel about the fact that he came to visit you here and got the doctors to let you go out with him?”  


“Amazing. I honestly didn’t expect him to even come. I hoped he would, but I didn’t think he would actually do it.”  


“Good. Good. I talked to Phil a few minutes ago. He’s just outside.” She pointed to the door.  


“He is? Can I see him?”  


“You can see him later, okay?”  


He nodded.  


“You’re probably getting out of here tomorrow, and Phil told me he wanted to take you on a date as soon as possible.”  


“He used that word?”  


“What word?”  


“Date. Did he say date?”  


“He did say date. But before you go back home, I’d like you to once again consider the possibility of medication. That would greatly lessen the chance of you ending up here again, you know that. You don’t have to make a decision right now, I would just appreciate it a lot if you were to think about it.” She got up and gave him a warm smile.  


“I’ll think about it.” He uttered.  


“I’ll see you tomorrow before you leave. Have fun with Phil.”  


“Thanks, I will.”  


She left the room. Dan didn’t even get time to wonder how long it would take Phil to get in here; the other didn’t even let the door close behind Michelle in his hurry to get into the room.


	10. The Reckless and the Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! This chapter contains self harm.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” 

“Yes, mum. I’ll be just fine. You go back downstairs, the guests need you more than I do, I promise.”

She nodded hesitantly and once again hugged him tightly to her chest before returning to the lift.

“I thought she was never going to leave.” The Captain commented as they walked into Dan’s bedroom.

“She wouldn’t have left if I’d asked her to stay.”

“You didn’t ask her to stay though. Even though you knew this conversation was about to happen. What’s up with that?”

“It wasn’t like making her stay would make the conversation go away.” Dan replied. “Go.” He added as soon as he’d closed the door behind him. “Say what you want to say.”

Oasis walked out from behind him and kneeled down beside The Captain, petting its fur. “I want you back.” She demanded.

“You haven’t lost me.” Dan said.

“Yes, I have. You’re replacing me. Phil is replacing me. I don’t like him, we need to get rid of him.”

“We’re not getting rid of someone I like just because you don’t like him. Listen, Oasis, you’re not the boss of me. I know you used to be, but you’re going to have to get used to not being anymore. I’m done. I want to be my own mind.”

“They won’t agree with that.” The Captain said. To anyone else, that would’ve sounded vague, but Dan understood. He knew the other voices wouldn’t agree with this decision, but they didn’t agree with anything he wanted really bad. It wasn’t like he didn’t expect that. He expected this fight, too. The Captain and Oasis were bound to both throw their temper tantrums over this, and Dan did not care. He would choose Phil over them any day, even though he wouldn’t directly tell them that. He’d tell them that in a more careful manner though.

The option of a medication change was becoming more and more appealing with every passing day, and the voices and characters all knew that it was bound to happen one day. There was no way of stopping it, but that wouldn’t keep them from trying their hardest to make him change his mind. They knew putting up a fight would mess with Dan’s mind nonetheless, as his mind didn’t exactly have a very strong defence system. The best way to break something down was from the inside out, and they were in the perfect position to do just that.

“You still don’t get it, do you? You need us, we need you. It’s as simple as that. When are you finally going to give in? Ever since that Phil guy showed up you’ve been trying to rebel against the system. You know it doesn’t work that way, you can’t just wish us away.”

“I can try.” Dan attempted to make those three words his ‘end of discussion’, but The Captain was not finished with him yet.

“I’m not letting you do this. I will call backup if you don’t let go of your delusional ideas right away.”

“Delusional ideas? Cap’, your entire existence is a result of me being delusional. I’m done trying to deny that it’s them and not me. You don’t exist. You’re just in my head. We both know that. Trust me, if I was able to just wipe you out by ‘letting go of my delusional ideas’, I would’ve done that a long time ago. But as you just said, it doesn’t work that way.”

“You know what’s going to happen next.”

“I do.”

It didn’t take them long. Hundreds of voices and dozens of hallucinations quickly got him to budge and make his way over to the bathroom. It wasn’t like other times. This time he felt he was truly present in the room, unlike other times, when he felt like he was kind of floating above the whole scene, watching the madness unfold with every cut to his arm. This time he felt every cut. Felt it tear up his skin and felt the blood start to drip out. It seemed to hurt a lot more than usual. He didn’t have to cut as deep in order to feel the pain and get the satisfaction. 

Oasis was there, standing next to The Captain. She seemed disappointed. Not because he’d cut, but because of the same reason all the others were there. That was a first. Everything seemed to be a first nowadays. ‘Nowadays’ being ever since Phil had entered his life, from the moment in that bookstore when he’d introduced himself and Dan couldn’t help but smile as he relived this moment. The blade stilled on his arm for a second, but he was immediately urged to continue by the characters around him, waking him from his pleasant daydream.

“I wish you were dead. Wouldn’t it all be just that bit easier if none of us existed?”

“I wouldn’t exist either.”

“Yeah you would. You’d just be… More dead and less alive, you know?”

Dan shrugged, “It’ll always be an option. Not now though. Not now.” He drew another line of red on his arm.

Due to him not cutting as deep, he didn’t pass out or even get dizzy. His throat closed up, but that was for entirely different reasons. He crawled over to the toilet just in time to throw up his last meal from the hospital just a few hours earlier. It seemed so long ago that he promised Michelle to use the rubber bands when he felt bad, and when he promised the doctors to call his parents for help again when he felt he needed it. 

He hadn’t even thought of their advice when he’d walked into this room knowing what was coming an hour and a half ago.

 

Dan continued for longer than usual, just waiting for the dizziness or light-headedness to set in, but neither did. He eventually gave up. Dropped his blades on the floor carelessly and dragged himself back to his bedroom, towel pressed against his bleeding wrist. 

“You stopping already?” The Captain contently toddled after him.

“Yeah. No more room. I’m tired, going to bed.”

“You’re just no fun. You haven’t even made up for what you’ve done yet.”

As Dan crawled under the covers, he tried to imagine Phil there with him. Last time he’d slept in this bed Phil had been there with him.

“So I take it you’re not going to go through with your foolish plan, are you?”

“Which one?” Dan asked mockingly.

“Any of them, really. Not the Phil one, not the medication one, not the rubber bands one, not the ‘calling your parents’ one. None of them.”

Dan wasn’t even surprised that they already knew about his plans to talk to Michelle about the medication next session. After all, they were in his head and could easily read along with all of his thoughts.

\--

Dan woke up with a horrible headache and a nauseous feeling. He rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom, pressing his hands against his eyes to keep the light from blinding him. The blades were still on the floor and he carelessly kicked them to the side. It felt like he was terribly hungover, even though he hadn’t had any alcohol. He washed his arm under the cool water from the tap and carefully dried it off with a clean towel.

“Might as well pick that blade back up while you’re at it anyway. As long as you’re not going to give up, we’re not going to either.”

And that was it for Dan. He ran out of the room without bothering to put on a jumper first and went straight to his parents’ room on the first floor. His mum just walked out, just putting on her silver watch. “Morning.” She greeted. “You’re up early. I thought you weren’t going to go to school for a few days.”

“I’m not. Mum, can you call Michelle for me?”

“Why honey, is something wrong.”

“Oh yeah, many things. Can you call her, please?”

His mother pulled out her phone and dialled the number of his psychiatrist. “Do you want her to come over or do you want to go visit her?”

“I’ll get a cab. Tell her I’ll get a cab.”

“Don’t you want me to drive you?”

“Nope, I’ll be fine. You’ve got, like, stuff to do here, you know?”

She nodded hesitantly and put the phone to her ear.

“Michelle? This is Karen Howell, Dan’s mother.”

“No, no, he seems alright, I think. He, um, do you have a spot for him today?”

“That would be great, thank you, I’ll tell him that.”

When she hung up the phone she turned to him. “She’s got time for you in one hour. I suggest you get breakfast and then take a cab, that okay? Are you alright?”

Dan nodded. “Breakfast sounds good and yes I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Go do work things, I’ll be fine, promise.” 

She kissed his forehead before leaving. 

Now that Dan had pulled himself together, he went back upstairs, put on a hoodie and went to the ground floor. The characters and voices were hard to ignore. Very hard. Especially when he was putting on his hoodie, standing so close to the bathroom where his blades were still scattered all over the floor.

Down in the lobby things were a little better, but he still stayed far away from all of the knives in the kitchen when he went to get breakfast. Fortunately, Clayton handed him a bowl of cereal with a spoon, and he went to sit in the lobby to eat. He watched the guests gradually come down, a lift full of them each time the doors opened, and watched them walk over to the dining room. It was still early, but many of them wanted to make the most of their holiday to London and went out to visit museums as early as the opening hours allowed them.

\--

Both Dan and the driver were silent the entire cab ride to the hospital, up until two blocks away, when the driver finally asked him what he was going to the hospital for.  
“Have to meet with someone, a doctor, kind of.” He said. “Nothing serious.” He quickly added.

Dan only had to knock once before he heard Michelle call him inside. He pushed the door open, stepped into the room, and closed it behind him. “Morning.” He said. “Sorry to call you in like this.”

“It’s alright, I had a client before you so it’s not like you woke me up.” She smiled. “What can I do for you today?”

“Last time I was in hospital, like on the ward, you told me I could try…” They were all screaming at this point. Dan couldn’t hear his own voice anymore and wasn’t sure how to pronounce words now that he couldn’t hear them himself. “I’ve got…” Speaking was hard when hundreds of voices were all trying to speak to you at the same time. Of course they knew what he was doing, and of course they weren’t going to just let him.

“Sorry, I just…” He wanted to scream at them to shut up. To just let him talk, but he knew they’d only laugh at him.

“Sit down, love.” She got up from her own chair to guide him to the one opposing hers. 

“I can’t sit there.” He protested. One of them had just put a pin on that chair, did she really want him to sit there? He blinked a few times and after a few seconds he realised that it wasn’t a real pin. He let Michelle push him down onto the chair and he pressed his hands against his temples in attempt to lessen the pressure on them.

“Medication.” He managed. “I want to try. Not permanent. Try.”

“No, you don’t.” He looked up, a bit surprised, but quickly realised that those words hadn’t come from Michelle but from one of the characters beside him.

Michelle looked surprised too, but she quickly recovered and nodded. Alright, we’ll have to try a few different types, but I can let you try a pill from a medicine that works with very many people right away, do you want that?”

“Anything. Just make it stop.”

“I’ll get you a glass of water.” She walked over to the sink in the corner and came back with a glass. Dan took it eagerly, gulping it down in one go. A glass of water was meant to calm him down, but he was calm. Well, he wasn’t erratic, at least. 

“Now Dan, I think it’d be best if you were to take this too.” Michelle handed him a pill. “Just chew on it like you would with any other food, okay?”

He didn’t question her. The screaming was worse than ever, all were objecting to the pill he was about to take, trying to get him to throw it away, as far from him as he could. He put the pill in his mouth and chewed. It didn’t take him long to realise what this pill did. It made him weak and sleepy, but he kept chewing nonetheless. A few seconds after he’d swallowed it he completely blacked out.


	11. Interlude

The fact that he woke up in his own bed confused him. He’d expected them to keep him over at the ward for at least the rest of the day, but when he glanced over at his alarm clock he realised that it was only just five pm on the same day. He blindly searched for his phone on his night stand until he felt his fingers wrap around the silicon phone case. One WhatsApp message and one missed call. He checked his message first.

 _‘Hey you didn’t pick up my call, but I was wondering if you wanted to go on a picnic with me?’_ It was from Phil. Of course it was from Phil. He’d sent it at eleven thirty, the call had been at ten. He’d probably waited with the message to see if Dan would call or message him back, but he obviously hadn’t done that.

 _‘Sorry for the late reply. I was knock-out. Maybe we can go some other time?’_ He messaged back.

While waiting for the reply, he noticed The Captain walk out from underneath his bed. “You’re really going through with this, aren’t you?”

Dan was both surprised to see him and to realise that the cat didn’t seem like it was going to attack him any time soon. He nodded.

Phil’s reply came a few minutes later, when he was sitting on his knees on the bathroom floor, gathering his blades, cleaning them off in the sink and putting them back in their box. 

_‘Sounds good to me. Why were you knock out though’_

_‘Went to see my psychiatrist, she gave me a pill to knock me out’_

_‘Why?’_

_‘I’ll explain it in person when I see you.’_

_‘When you do want to go on our picnic?’_

Dan didn’t message him back. He actually really wanted to go on this picnic without any of the voices and characters, and although everything seemed calm right now, he could never predict when they would come back. He had hopes that he would get those pills from Michelle soon and those would help. He wasn’t expecting them to fix everything, but maybe they would just give him some peace of mind.

As he was leaving his room a short while later, the lift doors opened and his dad stepped out. He looked tired, his suit slightly rumpled and bags under his eyes to show off the amount of stress he was under. Nonetheless, his face lit up when he saw his son, “Hey kiddo.”

“Hey dad.”

“I’ve got something for you, from Michelle.”

Dan’s heart fluttered, and he broke into a smile when he saw the pill bottle. As he reached out to take it, his father moved it away and said, “Listen, mate. I’m not going to give you this whole bottle. Michelle said to give you them twice a day, so I’m giving you one now and you can take it downstairs with you to take it during dinner, alright?”

“Yes.” Dan was quick to agree.

“Okay.” He unscrewed the cap and took out one little white pill. Dan clutched it in his hand as he went downstairs, almost hesitant to put it down even when he sat down to eat. He could only wait long enough to take three bites, and then he considered it ‘during dinner’ enough and popped the pill in his mouth. As he was washing it down with water, he saw The Captain walk along the side of the table from the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head the cat had disappeared.

\--

He was really going to have to ask his mum for Michelle’s phone number so that he didn’t have to bother her in order to speak to his psychiatrist, he thought as he walked up to his mum who was standing at the information desk in the lobby ten minutes later.

“Mum, can I borrow your phone for a minute?” He asked.

She smiled at him, “Michelle told me you’d want to speak to her. How’d you sleep?”

“Just fine.” Dan said. She handed him her phone and turned to the guest who’d just walked up to the desk.

He tapped Michelle’s name in his mum’s contact list and put the phone up to his ear.

“Michelle Stone.”

“Hi Michelle, it’s Dan. I just wanted to ask you what the pill you gave me was supposed to do?”

“The one I gave you this morning was just to calm you down.”

“And the ones you gave my parents?”

“They will hopefully stabilise you enough to decrease or even diminish your hallucinations. It might take a while for them to kick in, though. It would be extremely abnormal if they immediately kicked them all out. You’re going to have to keep taking these pills for a few weeks for them to completely take effect. Your parents were given a bottle of them when you were brought home, and I told them that you have to take two every day, preferably with your breakfast and dinner, starting today.”

Dan sighed in relief, “How many weeks is a few weeks?”

“Two to five, usually. The bottle of pills your parents have now should be enough for about two months. It’s a test bottle, so if you notice any negative side effects don’t hesitate to call me, alright? After these two months you can decide whether you want to keep taking them or not.”

“Which will go away first, he voices or the hallucinations?”

“I honestly don’t know.” She replied. “You’ll have to see that for yourself. All I know is that if these pills work, your life is going to get a lot more pleasant.”

\--

After the phone call, Dan messaged Phil.

_‘Can we schedule this picnic, say, three or four weeks from now?’_

_‘Do I have to wait that long to see you again? Can’t we meet up some other time before that?’_

_‘I will message you if we can, but I’m not sure yet’_

_‘You’re being awfully mysterious today’_

_‘Then again, I am an awfully mysterious person’_

_‘You are an open book to me, mister’_

Dan laughed at this as he made his way back upstairs. He felt good. Better than he had in months, actually. He was even considering going back to school tomorrow, even though his mum would definitely let him stay home if he told her he wanted to.

Taking pills wouldn’t take away the fact that people still stared at him and whispered about him behind his back in school, but they did give him a reason to believe that for once, they were wrong. He wasn’t feeling like a completely misfit anymore, with the knowledge that hopefully in a few weeks he would be just like them.

\--

The pills started to do their job better with each passing day. On the second day of the second week, Dan woke up to a completely quiet room. There was nothing and no one there. The space in his mind that was usually occupied by at least a handful of voices was now all free for his own thoughts and it felt like a gigantic weight had been lifted from his head. 

He ran downstairs, still in his sweats and T shirt, taking the stairs because he didn’t have the patience to wait for the lift.

“You’re early today.” His dad commented when he saw Dan run into the lobby.

“Yes!” Dan replied excitedly. “It’s quiet!”

“Excuse me?” His dad said. He put down the folders he had in his hands.

“I don’t hear or see anything. Well, I mean I see and hear the normal things, but there are no voices or characters. Nowhere. It’s all quiet. There’s so much room to think.”

His dad laughed, “That’s great, buddy. So those pills are working for you then? You told your mother you’d go for a picnic with Phil once the pills set in, didn’t you?”

Dan nodded. “I will message him right away.” He had a giant smile on his face and he was sure it wouldn’t disappear anytime soon. His dad didn’t mention the fact that he was actually supposed to go to school. If Dan wanted to celebrate the fact that the medication worked by going on a picnic, then he damn well was going for that picnic.

 _‘ARE YOU BUSY TODAY?’_ Dan messaged Phil. He didn’t mean to use caps lock, but god, he was excited about this. He was going to get to do whatever he wanted with Phil without having to think about what The Captain or Oasis would say. No tantrums and no attempts to make him self harm this time. He could completely focus on Phil.

 _‘I can make time’_ Came Phil’s reply.

_‘YES SO HOW ABOUT THAT PICNIC’_

_‘Will you finally tell me why I had to wait over two weeks?’_

_‘YES’_

_‘I’ll pick you up at twelve, sound good?’_

_‘SOUND AMAZING’_

Phil showed up in the lobby five minutes to twelve, and as soon as he saw Dan he raised both his arms, inviting Dan to hug him. The latter eagerly accepted this invitation, hugging Phil tightly. “I missed you. It’s been, like, eight days since we last saw each other.”

“Way too long ago.” Phil agreed. “So are you going to tell me what this long wait was for?”

“At the park.” Dan said.

“Well, let’s hurry up then. My mum insisted on me bringing a basket instead of a bag, because ‘it would be a more authentic experience’.”

“That’s adorable.” Dan laughed. He got in the passenger seat of Phil’s car – which was probably his mum’s, not Phil’s own - and fastened his seatbelt. When he glanced over his shoulder to the backseat, he saw the reed basket sitting on the left side, seatbelt neatly fastened around it to make sure it wouldn’t fall off the seat.

“I’ve really been kind of worried about you because you wouldn’t tell me why you put off our picnic.” Phil admitted as they drove further away from the centre of London.

“You shouldn’t have been, I’ve been feeling better than ever. Just wait, I’ll tell you what I was doing as soon as we’ve sat down at the park, okay?”

“You’re making me curious.”

\--

“Hurry up!” Phil shouted at Dan after he’d locked the car and started running.

“Are you that curious?” Dan shouted back as he started running after the older boy.

“You have no idea.”

“You must know that I haven’t been for a jog in about seven years, so my fitness level is below sea level at the moment.”

“Shouldn’t have gotten me so curious then.”

Phil finally stopped on top of a small hill. He stepped off the path running over the hill towards the next group of hills a few hundred metres away. He walked over to a big tree and sat down underneath it. The shadow of the tree fell over him, cooling him off from the run. Dan fell down on the grass next to him, and Phil pulled him closer by his shoulders, putting the boy’s head in his lap. “Now, are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?”

“Doing drugs.” Dan replied.

Phil laughed. “Sure you were.”

“Except I really was. Prescribed drugs though. I wasn’t just doing coke or anything. I’ve been taking antipsychotic drugs and I told myself I wouldn’t have this picnic with you until everything was completely quiet.”

“Quiet?”

“No voices, no characters.”

“So they’re working now? You don’t see or hear anything anymore?”

Dan shook his head, “Everything’s gone. It’s so silent in my head. I’m so used to always having voices up there talking to me, that I almost forget to think sometimes.”

“Is it even possible to not think?”

“I read somewhere once that it’s not. But really, it’s so quiet in my head that I start to question if I’m even thinking, and then I realise that by questioning it I am, in fact, thinking.”

“I sometimes wonder what’s going on in there.” Phil said, poking Dan’s forehead.

“So do I.” The latter replied.

 

“Did you even get the basket from the car?” Dan asked after a few minutes of lying there with his eyes closed. Phil hand was stroking his hair, and he hoped Phil had remembered to take the basket so that they didn’t have to get up and go get it.

“Of course. But it’s all the way over there.” Phil raised his other hand to point at the basket standing near his feet.

“Hm, don’t get it yet.” Dan said softly, eyes fluttering closed again.

“Tell me when you want me to get it, yeah?”

“Will do.”

It wasn’t until twenty minutes later when Phil sneezed that Dan woke up. His eyes sprung open and he immediately shut them again to block out the bright sunlight. “I fell asleep.” He muttered.

“Thought so already. Sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s fine. Do you want to have lunch now?”

“Sure.” Phil carefully lifted Dan’s head off his lap a bit so that he could lean forward and grab the basket, before laying Dan’s head back down and setting the basket down in the grass beside him. “I’ve got some sandwiches and cupcakes, which do you want first?”

Dan laughed and sat up, leaning against Phil’s shoulder. “Cupcake first?”

Phil rummaged through the basket and handed him a cupcake, grabbing one for himself too.

“I’m glad you’re with me.” Phil admitted, mouth full of cupcake.

Dan almost coughed up his own bite and Phil laughed, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that while you had your mouth full.”

“It’s fine.” Dan assured him. “I’m glad I’m with you, too.”

 

The picnic quickly turned into a swim in the lake, which the temperature wasn’t quite right for yet but neither of them cared about that all that much, and the dip in the lake turned into going to a pizzeria for dinner. They both texted their parents they were going to be home late as they walked to the theatre at eight. 

Dan had brought up all the courage he had in him and slipped his hand into Phil’s, who had graciously accepted this and softly squeezed his hand.

They chose a movie on the spot, and Dan paid for the tickets for the both of them. They walked into the room when it was already dark and the advertisements were playing. The room wasn’t too full, allowing them to choose a seat themselves. They chose a spot all the way in the back, with the projector just behind them. 

The chatter gradually died down as the lights completely turned off and the room went pitch black for a few seconds before the Marvel logo appeared on the giant screen, making everyone immediately shut their mouths.

Phil didn’t even try to be sneaky when he put his arm around Dan’s shoulder a few minutes into the movie.

\--

“Does this count as your late-night walk?” Phil asked as the two of them purposely took a detour to get back to the hotel.   
Dan nodded in reply.

“Hey, Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you.” It sounded so casual and calm coming from Phil. Everything sounded that way when Phil said it. But for some reason Dan knew that Phil didn’t mean this to be in any way light hearted. The older boy turned his head to see Dan’s reaction. He found a smile on Dan’s face and a slight blush on his already rosy cheeks.

“I’m in love with you too.” It had been on the tip of his tongue, waiting to jump off, for a few weeks now. It was easier to say now that he knew Phil felt the same about him.

They walked the last few blocks in silence until they reached the building. Phil turned Dan around to face him and hugged him close to his chest. “I’m definitely in love with you, actually. No doubt in my mind.” He whispered in the boy’s ear.

\--

Dan could hardly sleep that night. Firstly, he wasn’t used to the silence that was now around him as he was trying to sleep, and secondly, his own thoughts about Phil were doing quite a good job at taking up the space in his mind usually being occupied by voices.


	12. Satellite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! This chapter contains self harm and mentions of suicide.

The medication was amazing for over two weeks. Dan was happy to get used to the constant silence and peace around him and he started to actually enjoy going to school. Teachers started noticing that he wasn’t dozing off in their classes anymore and one of them even called Dan’s dad to ask if anything happened to him.

Exactly two weeks and three days after the medication had started to completely kick in, Dan walked into his bedroom to see The Captain lying on his bed. He could see him for just a few seconds before the cat disappeared again, but it was long enough for Dan to know that he’d really seen him. He felt his heart drop in his chest and he sat down on the floor, not bothering to close the door behind him.

He was back.

The Captain was back.

Did the medication stop working? Did he remember to take his pills? He was sure he’d taken them the night before.

 

Over the next few days, his old symptoms slowly started to come back to him. Dan couldn’t get the Mario theme song out of his head and every afternoon after school he paced around his room, watching the characters around him appear, disappear and reappear every few seconds. It was making him dizzier than the steady hallucinations ever had. He was never sure when they would show up, nor did he know when they’d disappear again. Oasis had disappeared in the middle of a sentence and reappeared in a different place a few minutes later, picking up her words where she’d left off.

He didn’t tell anyone about it, but Phil probably suspected something, as Dan’s phone had been lying in the same spot on his desk for days now and Dan could hear it buzz every now and again to tell him that Phil had messaged him.

 

The characters and voices started getting worse and worse. The pills were suppressing them, but only to the point where they wouldn’t stay in the same place for more than a few seconds, or they would stop talking after the same amount of time and start talking about something else about a minute later. It wore Dan out and he started skipping school again.

Two days before Dan’s scheduled appointment with Michelle to talk about whether he wanted to keep taking his pills or not, the headmaster of his school called to ask his mother about why Dan had been skipping classes again.

She confronted him with his truancy when he came downstairs for dinner that night, and as soon as he saw her face he knew he was in trouble. “Your headmaster called me.” She began.

Dan had heard enough with those four words. He turned around and started sprinting up the stairs to his floor. He slammed the door behind him and locked it, making sure no one could come in. He let his back slide down the door until he was sitting on the floor and pulled his knees up to his chest. 

Breathing was getting more and more difficult with every passing second and the characters standing in front of him were now flashing, their brightness being different with each flash. He tried to get his breathing under control, but it only got more uneven and his head started to feel light, like it was about to detach from his body and float away. As if called he could just catch a flash of his own head floating near the ceiling when he looked up, but it was gone after he blinked a few times.

“No more medication. I told you you couldn’t escape us ever.” It was The Captain’s familiar voice terrorising his head.

“Stop this.” Dan managed to spit out. His face was turning red from lack of oxygen.

“You can’t black out yet. You don’t deserve the peace of being knock-out. Pull yourself together, you fucking freak.”

Dan pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and crawled over to the bathroom. He hadn’t cut himself in weeks. Maybe he just needed to let the negativity out again for this all to stop. That was how he handled it usually.

_Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto._

It was hard to find his blades with the flashing images in front of his eyes, so he closed his eyes. His hands searched the shelves of the cupboard for the white box until he felt his fingers close around the plastic. He opened his eyes and randomly grabbed one of the blades. He hurriedly pulled up the sleeve of his right arm. He took half a second to take in the sight of his arm as it was now. All the cuts from before his medication were fading and some were no more than a thin red line marring his pale wrist far away from perfection. Then he pressed the blade into his arm. It was a lot deeper than the last time he’d cut, because this time he needed it again. Last time he hadn’t needed and hadn’t wanted it, but The Captain had made him do it. This time he craved the pain and he craved to see the red lines turn into cuts and the pale skin be covered by the red of his own blood.

 

When his mum knocked on the door half an hour later Dan was still sitting on the bathroom floor. He heard her knock and looked up for a second, “Go away.” He shouted at her.  
“Are you okay in there?”

“Go away.” Dan repeated. He wiped away some blood with a towel to find a clean place to cut.

“Dan, open the door, sweetheart.”

Dan didn’t reply anymore. The voices and characters were afraid he’d listen to her and follow her advice and they’d started screaming loud enough to drown away any other sound and any thought Dan could’ve possible used to pull himself out of the madness of his own head.

It was eating him from the inside. He couldn’t hear his own thoughts and had no voice to reason with the voices in his head. He was unsure whether some of the voices were his own thoughts or if they were characters made up by his brain that was spinning out of control. He couldn’t do anything but follow what they said blindly. 

His screaming was an attempt to hear himself over the pounding in his head, but it was of no use. He could hear his mum’s voice but he wasn’t sure if it was actually her or if it was just in his head.

\--

His mother had sat down on the floor outside his bedroom door. She could hear his screams and bit her lip, knowing she couldn’t do anything to help her son from this position. With shaking hands she pulled out her phone and called Michelle, who promised her that she’d take people who were capable of breaking down a door, just in case they would need it. 

As soon as she’d pressed the red button she dialled Phil’s number. There was no doubt in her mind that the person Dan would want to see most right now was Phil. He always wanted to see Phil.

“Phil.” She heard his voice say on the other side.

“Phil, it’s Dan’s mother, Karen. Can you come over? It’s kind of an emergency.”

“I’m on my way.”

He was easy like that, she thought. He would always drop everything to help Dan. She liked this boy a lot and hoped they’d stay together, although she wasn’t even sure if they were officially together. What she did know was that Dan was absolutely crazy about Phil and he was the light of her son’s life, keeping him on his feet and motivating him to try and get better.

 

Phil arrived first. He had a backpack swung over his shoulder and he looked like he’d come straight from university, next to him was a woman whom Karen vaguely recognised as his mother, Kathryn. Kathryn walked up to her and offered her her hand, “I know this isn’t the perfect time for introductions, but my name is Kathryn. Thought you should know that.”

“I’m Karen, nice to meet you. I’m sorry I made you drive here at such short notice, I’m sure you have other things to do.” She gave Kathryn a weak smile.

“Phil said it was an emergency.” The other woman simply said. She was just like Phil: willing to drop anything in order to help others.

“What’s going on?” Phil asked.

“I’m not sure. He’s locked himself in his room and a few minutes ago he was screaming for me, his father and you. I don’t know what to do.”

Kathryn pulled her to her feet and put an arm around her in that motherly way. She was older than Karen by a few years. “We need to keep our heads clear. The last thing he needs right now is for us to all lose it. I think he’s got it pretty difficult in that mind of his, from what I’ve heard so far.”

“He does.” Karen agreed. She looked exhausted from everything. This situation was the last straw: she was going to make Dan keep taking those pills, whether he wanted to or not. She loved him to death, but she knew that neither of them could carry the burden of his untreated illness any longer. She’d talk about it with him as soon as this was all over.

Michelle looked surprisingly calm when she walked onto the hall with three men walking behind her, who all looked exceptionally serious about the whole situation.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Michelle asked. She put her hand on the door, but didn’t seem to plan on attempting to get it open.

“He locked himself in his room and he was screaming, I don’t think he could hear me anymore when I talked to him. Either that or it just doesn’t get through to him.”

“Has he been taking his medication?”

“As far as I know, yes. On days I have dinner with him myself I make sure he takes them and if I’m not with him I’ve got four people who work in the kitchen watching him. He’s taken them every day.”

“I suspect they’re not strong enough, his body has already gotten used to them. He needs stronger pills. Do you know if he is planning on continuing to take his medication?”

“I think he isn’t, but I’m going to make sure he is going to take them because I cannot take this anymore. And I’m not saying this out of selfish motives, but I no longer want to see my son suffer anymore. Do you know what it’s like to hear him scream to you for help but you’re not able to do anything to help him? It’s horrible. It makes me ache all over.”

Michelle nodded knowingly, “I know, Karen. We’ll figure this out when this is over, alright? As much as we would want to, we can’t make his decisions for him.”

“The system is faulty. He clearly cannot make rational decisions about what’s best for him.”

All six heads shot up when they heard something violently crash into the floor in the room behind the door next to them. They were fairly certain it wasn’t Dan who had just collided with the wooden surface, but they heard him curse loudly after the crash.

“Dan, are you okay in there? Do you need help?”

The reply came in the form of a stack of books flung at the door, which made all six of them take a step back.

“Dan, if you open the door we can make it stop. We can help you, I promise.” Michelle tried again. Her voice was calm and steady and Karen wasn’t sure how she managed.

They could hear Dan stomp around the room and throw things onto the floor, and sometimes they could hear a hiss of pain, but they were unsure of what was hurting him.

“Dan?” Phil finally spoke up.

It was quiet for just a second, before the next stack of books was thrown at the door. After that, a deafening silence fell over them all. There were soft footsteps on the other side of the door, but none of them knew what Dan was doing now.

\--

Dan felt a weird sense of peace settle down on top of the mess in his head, covering it so that all the voices were muffled and he had a little room to think, when he saw one of the books that had fallen onto the floor after it had hit the door. It was the book Phil had bought for him that first time they’d met at the bookstore. He slowly walked over to it and sank down on the floor on his knees, pulling the book onto his lap. His fingers traced the letters of the title and the author on the cover as his breathing started to even out. He remembered that moment when Phil had first handed him the book and their fingers touched just for a split second, and Dan had felt his heart jump and his breath catch in his throat.

The moment of silence lasted about a minute, then the voices managed to dig themselves out of the layer of peace that had settled on them and they were back in business, screaming curses and hurtful things at Dan.

 

Dan seemed to never get tired. The only moment of silence had been just after he’d thrown the second stack of books at the door, and after that he’d been busy walking around, kicking and throwing things, until he stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. They couldn’t hear him throw stuff around anymore, but they could hear him whimper every few seconds. None of them said it, but they all knew what he was doing and Karen sank down against the wall again, with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. 

 

Dan’s father Timothy came upstairs about an hour after Karen had, and sat down next to his wife, putting an arm around her. It seemed like it was never going to end. All they could hear was this endless circle of throwing and kicking, and hissing in pain in the bathroom. The three men had offered to break down the door and just drag him out multiple times now, and each time Michelle had told them that Dan still had too much energy for them to do that, as they had no idea what his reaction would be. After all he’d have a few seconds before they could get to him after kicking the door down and they didn’t know what he would do in those few seconds.

Suicide.

They were all thinking it, but no one had the guts to say the word out loud, in fear of making any one of the others even more upset than they already were.

It wasn’t until two am, by which time they’d all sat down on the floor and were softly talking to each other, that it finally became quiet in the room. And not just ‘Dan’s in the bathroom’- quiet, but actually completely quiet. They all sat up a bit to listen, but the noise didn’t start again. They sat there, just listening, for fifteen minutes until Michelle broke the silence by whispering, “Now is the time. It’s now or never.”

They all got up and got out of the way of the three men, who had by now introduced themselves as Jack, Michael and Levi, who were getting ready to kick the door in. 

The guests wouldn’t appreciate this wakeup call at two am, Karen and Timothy knew that, but they’d pay all the guests back their expenses of the night or give them free meals or something like that if they had to. 

The actual act of kicking in the door was surprisingly fast and surprisingly quiet. It was a short bang, when Michael’s foot collided with the door just beside the door handle, and Jack managed to catch it before it would slam against the wall behind it, to make sure it wouldn’t hit Dan if he were to be sleeping in front of the door.

He wasn’t though. It took them half a second to locate his body beside the bed, rolled up into a ball with his head pressed against the cool wood of his night stand.

Dan had just enough time to raise his head before he was lifted up by Michael and Levi. “Can you walk?” Michael asked him.

Dan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. The voices were slowly starting back up, but he had heard the man’s question. “Yes.” He said. He was lowered so that his feet now hit the floor and they gave him a few seconds to stabilise himself before they led him out of the room.


	13. We Say Summer

Michelle was the first to enter the room after the three men. She immediately noticed the post it notes scattered all over the floor, with words written on them that she could not read yet. She recognised the behaviour. It was something she’d told him to do herself. ‘If you’re feeling down or if any of the voices are saying bad things to you, write it down on a post it note and rip that to pieces.’

He hadn’t given himself time to rip these ones to pieces. He’d probably moved on to the next note as soon as he’d finished writing the previous one. With so many voices in your head talking at the same time it was hard to keep up. 

\--

Dan spent three weeks in the hospital this time. He was restrained in a no-visitors-room for the first one and a half week and was then moved to a normal room, where he remained restrained for the rest of the week. It wasn’t until they were completely sure that he wouldn’t attempt to harm himself again that they let him walk around freely. 

His parents and Phil visited him as often as they could, and Dan had met both of Phil’s parents too, who often came along with either Dan’s own parents or Phil. The two pairs of parents became friends easily, and although it felt strange to Dan that Phil’s mum and his own would come to visit him without Phil being with them at first, he quickly got used to it and he looked forward to their visits.

Phil’s parents even came to visit him on their own twice, and Dan couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy their visits. They were both the kind of people that could keep a conversation running no matter how uninteresting the other person was and they were constantly chatting away at him.

No matter how enjoyable everyone’s visits were, he still looked forward to the day he was going to be let go. Him and Phil had already planned a date for that day, despite both sets of parents advising him to go easy for a few days first.

When they realised that they couldn’t talk the two boys out of it, Kathryn insisted on at least driving them where they wanted to go, and that was how they ended up waving her goodbye while stood in front of that bookstore where they’d first met about five months ago. 

Dan hadn’t been here very often ever since, and he felt a hint of regret tugging at his heart as he watched Andrea stack some books on a shelf through the familiar glass door. They walked in together, hand in hand.

Andrea looked up when she heard the little bell above the door go off, and she immediately smiled upon seeing them. “You two got together? I called it. I called it, Dan, didn’t I? I told you first time I mentioned him to you. I did say that, didn’t I? I don’t really remember actually. What can I do for you two boys today?”

“We’re just here to look around, really. Thanks though.” Phil gave her his sweetest smile and pulled Dan to the shelf in the back, with the astronomy books.

It was a tad dusky back there, as the lamp that was supposed to enable them to read the titles on the spines of the books was broken and only flickered a little occasionally. Like lightening.

It was already dark out, and they were sure to be able to see each other better if they were to stand in the middle of the store, but neither seemed to have the intention of moving away from the exact spot they were standing that moment.

Andrea couldn’t see them from where she was standing and they couldn’t see her. It was almost as if they were alone in the store, and when they heard her footsteps walk to the Staff Only door, after which she opened it, stepped through, and closed it behind her, they truly were alone.

Dan could just see the dark streets outside when he stood on his tiptoes to peek over the tall shelves standing in between him and the door to the outside world.

It was dark and a bit cold were they were standing, but all was forgotten when Phil carefully pulled him closer, hands on his hips. Dan was sure it wasn’t to hug him this time, as he kept his eyes focused on Dan’s own. Dan was perfectly willing to do this. More than that even. He had been waiting for this to happen was a better way to phrase it.

When Phil closed the distance between them a little, still giving him space to move away, Dan didn’t hesitate for even a second before completely closing the distance between them and pressing his lips to Phil’s. He felt soft and warm against him. Not just his mouth, but his entire body. The older boy wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist and pressed the two of them together, leaving no room between them. This time he didn’t give Dan the chance to move away, but it wasn’t like Dan needed that.

He wanted this. Maybe even more than Phil did.

He’d never kissed anyone before, but all the puzzle pieces seemed to come together just fine. Phil made up for Dan’s lack of skill with ease and they stood there for a good few minutes before one of them had the guts to carefully pull away.

Dan had the urge to look away when their eyes met again, but he didn’t. He knew he was blushing, but he was done looking away because he now knew Phil didn’t care if he was embarrassed. He didn’t care at all. “I’ve been waiting for that to happen for like a month.” Dan admitted.

Phil chuckled, “I’ve been wishing for it to happen for even longer. I wanted to make sure you wanted it too.”

“Oh, I definitely did.” Dan laughed, kissing him again.

\--

They were sat on the steps before the ice cream bar, both an ice cone in their hands and both too busy with the other to remember to eat it. It wasn’t until Phil noted that the ice cream was starting to melt and run down his hand in little streaks that they took a break from their chatter to quickly eat them. 

It was a pretty day in early May. The sun was shining brightly, heating up the stone steps so much that the two of them didn’t dare put their hands on them, and everyone was walking around in T shirts and shorts. Dan and Phil watched the people go by on the pavement in front of them, whispering a comment to each other every now and again.

It had already been decided that Phil was staying the night, so they were in no hurry to go anywhere, sat there in their short-sleeved clothing and the sun burning on their exposed arms and legs. “It was so freaking cold when we first met.” Phil said suddenly.

Dan was quick to agree, “I was freezing my ass off.”

They were once again quiet for a few minutes until Phil once again spoke up. “Your appointment with Michelle is next week, isn’t it? About the pills?”

Dan nodded. “Friday.” He said.

“So do you know what you’re going to say yet?”

Dan rubbed his hands together and stared straight ahead. “I’m thinking of trying them, you know, the pills. I want to talk to her about trying even stronger medication, because right now the pills I’m taking aren’t working that well anymore. I’ve been reducing my dose to make sure I don’t get withdrawal symptoms, but they’re practically useless for my hallucinations at the moment.”

“But there are stronger medications available, right? You can take stronger pills that will actually work and you’ll be able to feel as good as you did after those first two weeks?”  
“Definitely. I want to try it, I really do, it’s just that I’m afraid I’ll have, like, an episode again because my voices and characters don’t want me to take them. They’re the only ones standing in the way of me and those pills.”

“Maybe it’s best if you make sure that for the rest of the week up until you start your new pills you’re not left alone again? Like if there’s no other option you could even get admitted to the hospital for a few days while you wait, right?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind if you were with me all week.” Dan smiled.

Phil laughed and poked his arm, “Me neither, but I’ve got classes, you know.”

“I know, I was just joking. I think I can manage.”

“I hope so.” Phil said. He put his arm around Dan’s shoulders and kissed his cheek, “Man, am I glad I can just do things like this without you thinking I’ve gone out of my mind now.”

“Well honestly, I would’ve thought you were a little out of your mind if you’d done this two months ago, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have liked it.”

\--

They walked into Dan’s room together. Dan hadn’t been there since the day of his most recent episode, and the first thing he realised was that they’d cleaned up. He never remembered much from what he did during episodes, but this time he was sure that he’d made quite a mess.

Two big plastic bags were standing on the bed, and he assumed those were the post it notes he’d written and thrown on the floor. As soon as he’d heard that he’d written them, when he was in the hospital, he’d asked his parents to keep them. He wanted to know. He wanted to read them all.

It would keep him strong in his decision to start taking stronger medication if he knew what kind of things the voices and characters said to him. 

“Those are the post its.” Phil said as he pointed at the bags, confirming Dan’s assumptions.

“Yeah, I thought so. Did you help them clean up?”

“Yep, it was your parents, mine, and me.”

“Your parents helped?”

“Of course they did.”

“They’re angels. You’re all angels. I don’t know how any of you even put up with me.”

Phil laughed and turned him around, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I chose to put up with you and never have I once regretted that decision. Please remember that. Always. I won’t regret this decision.”

“Sometimes I regret my decision myself.” Dan admitted.

Phil gave him a confused look.

“Sometimes I regret ever putting up with myself and making others put up with me.”

“If that means what I think it means then you need to drop those thoughts right away and set them on fire because that is bullshit and you are not to think that way.”

Dan grinned, “You always know exactly what to say, don’t you?”

“No, I just say whatever comes to mind.”

“Yet you always come across as calm and collected while you say the most perfect words you could’ve possibly said in that situation.”

“Well, thank you. I do try to say the perfect things.” Phil laughed.

 

Dan took the bags off the bed and started taking out the notes, carefully placing them on the sheets in long rows until the entire bed was covered in post it notes in all the colours of the rainbow. He smiled contently and took a step back when he was finished. Phil had sat down on his office chair and had watched him work.

“There.” Dan said.

“Have you read them all?”

“None yet. I wanted to arrange them first. Here, get up.”

Phil got up from the chair and stood next to Dan, looking at the arrangement of notes on the bed for the first time, as he hadn’t been able to see them from the office chair he’d been sitting in.

“You arranged them according to the colours of the rainbow.” He stated.

“I did.” Dan nodded.

“You know the order of the colours by heart?”

“Of course I do.” Dan said, proceeding by reciting them for Phil, “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.”

“Yeah, but can you recite Pi to eleven digits?” Phil challenged him.

“I can recite it to 32 digits.” Dan replied.”

“Prove it, buddy.”

“I prefer a less platonic term, thank you very much.”

“Prove it, boyfriend.”

It had the desired effect, as it shut Dan up for a good few seconds before the younger boy nodded and started reciting Pi. “3.14159265358979323846264338327950.” He spat it all out in one breath with practised ease and gave Phil a content look when he finished.

“See now this is just unfair. You could’ve been bluffing and saying random numbers and I wouldn’t know.”

“Type them in on Google, I’m completely correct.”

“Okay, so why do you know Pi to 32 digits?”

“I learnt them on Pi day.” Dan said simply, as if that explained everything.

“You’re an impossible person. You truly are.”

Dan grinned, almost proud of himself for baffling Phil. 

“So what I said earlier, about, how do I say this, I called you boyfriend, are you okay with that?”

Dan turned to face him and leaned against the wardrobe. “How do I say this,” He paused for a second while he pretended to think, “Fuck yes.” 

He was immediately pushed with his back against the wardrobe by an overexcited Phil, who was pressing his own body against Dan’s and connected their lips in a strong kiss.

 

By the time Dan finished reading all the notes it was nearly twelve and the two of them made quick work of putting them all back in the bags to clear the bed for them to sleep in.  
They got changed into their pyjamas (which consisted of, in Dan’s case, a T shirt and boxers and in Phil’s case just a pair of boxers, because damn it was it hot), not bothering to take a shower and brushed their teeth together, standing close to each other even thought he bathroom was big enough for them to stand in front of the mirror together without touching.

Dan eventually fell asleep with his head on Phil’s chest and the latter’s arms tightly wrapped around him, and he had to admit that he hadn’t slept this well since, well, the last time he’d fallen asleep in Phil’s arms.


	14. Ground Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! this chapter contains self harm and mentions of suicide

Dan didn’t regret his decision to not let himself be hospitalised for the first six days of that week, but on Thursday evening, the day before his appointment with Michelle, the regret quickly grew as all the characters decided to suddenly gang up on him as he stepped out of the bathroom after using the toilet. They forced him to walk backwards, back into the bathroom, where he almost slipped on the small mat lying in front of the bath because he couldn’t see where he was placing his feet.

Suddenly he was regretting every decision he’d made in the past week. He should’ve just let them hospitalise him. 

The voices were already starting. He knew they’d make it a now or never situation as the decision to start taking strong medication had already been made. He was not going to change his mind on this matter and they knew that. They all knew that.

Despite knowing this, he still wasn’t sure what they would do to try and stop him. If they couldn’t change his mind, that surely wouldn’t be their goal in this attack either. It didn’t take him long to realise what the endgame would consist of, and the first thought in his mind was that Phil would be angry at him if he did it, and he almost smiled at the realisation of how stupid that thought was. Of course Phil would be angry. But he would be disappointed and sad too. And so would his own parents. And Phil’s. And his entire family.

He wouldn’t get the chance to regret anything if he were dead though. He didn’t believe in the afterlife or in heaven. He believed that when he died, everything would just be over. Like a dreamless sleep. An endless slumber.

He wouldn’t know if it would drive any of the people he loved to hurt themselves. He would never know what his suicide would do to other people, and that was the reason he’d never done it. The possibility had always been there in the form of that white box of blades, and it had always been staring right at him each time he’d opened the bathroom cabinet. This time he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to resist the temptation. The voices were already starting to get louder and louder, and although their build up was slower than usual, that could mean that they would be stronger and louder than usual too. 

His phone was on his desk, but he couldn’t get to it as at least seven characters were blocking the door, cornering him between the sink and the bath. He knew what they wanted him to do. He was in the perfect place to lean down and get the blades from the cabinet. “I’m not doing it.” He tried. But by this time the voices had become loud enough for him to be unable to hear himself speak and thereby unable to convince himself of his own words.

His survival instinct was working hard on a plan to try and get him out of here. It was two different parts of his brain trying to battle this matter out, and Dan had no idea which side would win this time. He opened the cabinet and grabbed the box, placing it on the edge of the sink.

“Do it.” He heard over and over again in his head. Dozens and dozens of voices were instructing him to take a blade to his arm, they were telling him what patterns to draw with his own blood and they were describing the feeling of the cold metal against his pale skin in great detail.

His survival instinct had come up with a plan. It wasn’t a plan to get him out of the entire situation, but it involved an attempt to get help, so he decided to roll with it. He took a blade from the box and drove it into his right arm, this time not caring about the feeling, but more about the spectacle it would bring. He cut deep, trying to get as much blood as he could without bringing himself in danger or weakening himself. “Is this what you want to see?” He asked them. He took a step towards the characters barricading the door. “Look at my arm, the performance is right on my arm.” He said as he made another cut. The blood was already dripping onto the floor.

He took another few steps and waved his bloody wrist around. They stepped out of his way. It was working. “Out of the way, out of the way, artist coming through.” He called as he stepped out of the bathroom. It went easier than he expected.

He walked over to his desk, blade still playing at his wrist, and grabbed his phone.

“Don’t even try. I’m not fooled by your stupid little act.” It was The Captain. Of course it was him.

“Leave me alone.”

“Hey guys, he’s just trying to distract you. He wants to call for help. Do you all want to vanish into non-existence without him? It’s all or nothing. We either die without him,” He turned to face Dan, “Or with him.”

“I’m not committing suicide.”

“That’s what you think now. We’re only just getting started.”

They started chanting in his head. Dan hated when they chanted. He could handle the screaming and the all talking at the same time, but it was the chanting that always broke him, and they knew. They were telling him to throw his phone on the floor this time, and he knew he would break soon if he listened to their words for much longer. He looked at the iPhone in his hand and bit his lip, thinking about all the messages from Phil it stored. The pictures the other had sent him while sat in lecture or when he was cooking for his parents, and it was then that he realised he couldn’t break his phone. He couldn’t lose all those memories of Phil. He didn’t want to miss the first ever message Phil had sent him, “Plot twist: Sirius Black wrote The Sirius Mystery.” It would’ve sounded so completely random if anyone else had received the message by accident, but it had ended up on the right phone and it had made Dan smile when he read it. He still smiled every time he even thought about it. Even this time it managed to bring a weak smile to decorate his features for a few seconds.

“That message isn’t going to do anything for you now, Dan. You might as well throw the phone away.” He could only just hear The Captain over the chanting. 

In some strange miracle that Dan still wouldn’t be able to wrap his mind around years later the door opened in that exact moment and his mother stepped in. In his hazy state Dan managed to raise his arms towards her, and although he probably looked strange, it worked. “Dan, what’s going on?” Her eyes ran over his bloodied arm as she approached.

“Help me.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to die.” He whispered. He clutched the blade in his fist, but his mum carefully pried open his hand and tossed it away from them.

“You’re not going to die.” She said.

And Dan tried to repeat that over and over in his head. His weak infantry defence against a trained cavalry out to break him. They sank down onto the floor together and his mum wrapped her arms tightly around him, leaning her head against his and just holding him quietly. He grasped onto her arms for dear life.

\--

He woke up in a place he recognised as a hospital, but not as one he knew. His parents were sat together on the unmade bed on the other side of the room, and they both appeared to be asleep. To his surprise, he wasn’t restrained. As quietly as he could he stretched out his limbs and got out of bed, keeping his eyes trained on his mum and dad, who didn’t stir. 

The door was unlocked, and he pushed it open into a white hallway decorated with long rows of paintings. He admired them as he walked past them, stopping every now and again to take a closer look at one. 

“Hi, Daniel.”

He looked up from a painting of an apple tree and into the face of a friendly looking nurse.

“Hello.”

“My name is Michael. Do you know where you are?”

“Not sure.” 

“You’re at Hyacinth Psychiatric Hospital. Do you remember what happened?”

“I didn’t try to kill myself.” He responded, almost defensively.

Michael smiled gently, “You didn’t, that’s true. You fell asleep and your mum called us.”

“Have I been institutionalised?”

“No, but we are offering you a bed. You can stay here for in-patient treatment if you want to do so, but you’re eighteen so it’s your call. You can take some time to think this over.”

Dan nodded, “I’ll talk to my parents about it.”

Michael guided him to the communal area and sat him down by the window. Dan appreciated the silence when he left him alone. He watched the people around him for a while, each engrossed in their own activities. This was his first time in an adult psychiatric hospital, and the patients here were wildly different from the children he was used to. What they all had in common, however, was that they all looked completely normal. They were all someone’s next-door neighbour or the guy who sat next to them in their Intro to Statistics course. Someone you’d never guess was fighting a war within themselves when you were looking at them. And Dan was one of them, he supposed. 

\--

The three of them sat around the table, each with a cup of tea, in a way they hadn’t done in a long time. They weren’t in a hurry, mentally going over their to-do lists or literally on the phone to a business associate, instead taking the time to listen to each other and speak their minds. Dan told his parents what had been going on in his brain and his life over the past year or so, and in turn they told him about what had been keeping them busy, and how they felt about his treatment. They all cried.

It took three hours and four cups of tea each to reach a conclusion. Dan would stay at the hospital while he tried out different types of medications until he found one that truly worked for him. He was going to voluntarily admit himself, which wasn’t something he’d ever expected himself to be doing.

That same day he sat down with a team of medical personnel – his team now- and talked them through his situation and his eagerness to start taking the drugs as soon as possible. When he left with a care plan but without a time indication he was slightly disheartened, but he didn’t let it get him down. Every time he got hesitant, he looked at those lines on his wrists and reminded himself of what had already happened, and what might happen if he went on like this. He gritted his teeth and went on.

\--

Although they texted non-stop, Phil didn’t visit until Dan’s seventh day at the hospital. He brought books, and the two of them spent the afternoon lounging in the communal area. Dan was weirdly starting to feel at home here, having befriended two other patients and gotten used to the daily routines. He went to his different therapy sessions, studied for his A Levels, and picked up drawing again. His drawings folder was getting thicker with each passing day, and his therapist, Angela, had already framed one of his drawings and hung it in her office. 

“What have you been doing without me?” Dan asked, poking Phil with his foot.

“Going to uni. Reading. Hanging out with friends.”

“Hm, friends, what is that like?”

For a second Phil froze, but then he realised Dan was joking and started laughing, “Feels good. They can’t wait to meet you.”

“Do they know I’m here?” Dan asked, suddenly serious.

“Yeah, but they don’t mind.” Phil sat up and put his book down as he leaned over to his boyfriend, “Listen, Dan. Secondary school sucks. It really does. People are unnecessarily mean, and once you leave there you will find that the rest of the world just doesn’t care about anything. The outside world doesn’t have cliques or popular kids or anything like that. We’re all just a bunch of adults who feel like we’re not equipped to handle life but somehow we’re wrestling our way through anyway.”

It gave Dan a sense of hope to imagine that he would never have to go back to school, and the last time he would have to see any of his classmates would be at his final A Level exams. In the evening, when Phil had gone home, Dan drew a picture of a graduation ceremony, setting it in the lobby of his parents’ hotel with just his family, Phil and his, and the hotel staff like Brianna and Callum attending. He even put Andrea from the bookstore in the line-up, right next to Phil’s dad.

Over two cups of tea and biscuits Phil taught Dan the names of his friends, showing him pictures on his phone to accompany. He also showed him his brother for the first time, and Dan showed him his. 

Dan’s head was quiet. He had room to think and was filling the space up with thoughts about Phil and his life and interests: facts that he was only just learning about. For Dan, his illness defined most of his life, and with that most of his relationships. But with the prospect of a peaceful future on the horizon he suddenly realised that he had to fill in his relationships more meaningfully. He listened to Phil ramble about his favourite book – And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie-, his trip to Spain with friends the Summer before, and the horrible job at a Poundland he’d had when he was sixteen. Dan stored all this information in spaces usually reserved for voices and intrusive thoughts, confident that he would not be needing these spaces as much. He left a few open, with the notion that he was still ill and that wasn’t going to go away. His brain was going to slip up and that was okay, he would deal with those times and come out on the other end bruised but unbroken.


	15. Afterglow (Epilogue)

His mum had insisted he wore one of those classic graduation caps, and he’d reluctantly agreed. Now that he was standing in the hotel dining room with it planted firmly on his head, he was glad she’d managed to convince him. It gave the whole ordeal just that extra edge of funny yet formal.

Michelle was the one to shake his hand and give him his diploma while Callum took dozens of pictures in short succession, kneeled to their right. It was a symbolic certification, seeing as Dan’s diploma had come in the post after he’d missed his school’s graduation ceremony. In no way would it ever have been able to live up to the one he was having now, in attendance of the people he actually loved and knew wouldn’t belittle or make fun of him. His grades weren’t that good, and instead of having a teacher lie about how proud they were of him, he had Michelle speaking nothing but the truth as she struggled to keep her tears at bay. “When I first got to know you were at your wits end, struggling to do daily tasks and get up in the morning. Today, you have a diploma, a boyfriend, and a strong support system.” She gestured to the room around them, filled with the people who had stood by Dan for all those years. “I am so incredibly proud of you. Of the way you have kept your head high and ready to fight no matter how difficult things got, and while I’m sure life won’t just be smooth sailing from here, I know that with all these people, and your own strength and willpower at your disposal, you can get through anything. This is the start of a new and better life for you, and I really, from the bottom of my heart, wish you all the happiness in the world.”

By the end of her speech half the attendees were in tears, including herself and Dan, who managed to say, “Thank you” before hugging her tightly. 

He shook everyone’s hand individually, all the staff, his family members, Phil’s family members, Phil’s -and at this point his own too- friends, Andrea, and Lauren and Kyle, his friends from Hyacinth Hospital. He had never received this many hugs in such a short period of time. 

All these people had been there for him at one point or another, whether that had been bringing him soup in his room on a bad day, or giving him a little alien keychain they’d found at a second-hand shop because ‘it reminded them of him’. And apparently, they weren’t done giving yet. When he finished hugging everyone Brianna wheeled out one of the food carts, that was holding a large contraption covered with a sheet. 

“A graduation gift. From all of us.” Phil took Dan’s hand and squeezed it, smiling happily when his boyfriend squeezed back. “Go ahead. Pull off the sheet.”

Dan stepped forward and did as he was told. With one hand (the other was still holding Phil’s) he uncovered his present, revealing a detailed model of the solar system. A tiny purple spaceship hovered above Mars, to give it just a little dash of Dan. Because if there was one thing he loved more than space, it was aliens. 

He let go of Phil’s hand now, stepping forward and tracing his finger over Saturn’s ring, “You guys…” He said softly. All words had escaped him. His mind was blank and his eyes were filled with tears. 

“Do you like it?” His dad’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder and stayed there.

“I love it.”

He was pulled into a strong embrace, and before his father could let go his mother had joined them. Over his dad’s shoulder Dan saw his little brother roll his eyes and then give in too. 

The model of the solar system was carefully wheeled to the side of the room where everyone could admire it in their own time while they had dinner. Carts full of Dan’s favourite dishes the cooks had made over the years were brought in and everyone chose a seat. 

Dan sat with Phil’s family and his own, holding his boyfriend’s hand under the table. 

For the first time in ages, he was hopeful for the future. He wasn’t going to university, but he was going to be working at Andrea’s store. When she’d offered him the job he’d hardly been able to believe his ears. Working at a bookstore had never been something he’d considered to be an option, really, but the moment the opportunity presented itself he knew that he had to take it. It was where he belonged, with the books and sturdy enduringness of stories. They had helped him escape so many times and now he was getting the chance to help other people step into new worlds. 

It was two weeks since he had been discharged from Hyacinth Psychiatric hospital and two months since he had last hurt himself. The future was warm and inviting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Next chapter will be up soon!


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